Gone too soon

March 16, 2004 2:55 PM

Bob Zangas killed in ambush in Iraq.Bob was a Public Affairs officer with the CPA in Iraq and a pretty good blogger. After spending 6 months in Iraq as a Marine he returned as a civilian to do what he could to help the Iraqi people rebuild their nation. His blog posts were sometimes funny, sometimes sad but always told from the point of view of someone who wanted nothing more than to help. Link goes to the last post before his death.
posted by billman (30 comments total)

I just found and read his blog earlier today. This is shocking sad news hearing this now. One of his latest posts mentioned the returning Marines that my brother served with. My condolences go out to his family & friends.
posted by thomcatspike at 3:09 PM on March 16, 2004

Bummer, hadn't read him before but he seems like he was a good man and trying to be helpful in a tough situation.
posted by fenriq at 3:10 PM on March 16, 2004

Zangas, another CPA employee and their Iraqi interpreter were killed Tuesday evening when Iraqi policemen chased the vehicle in which they were riding, forced it off a road and then executed them with a hail of machine gunfire.
The three had been on a return trip to their fortified compound in Hilla after they had visited a newly opened Women's Rights Center in Karbala. The other American, Fern Holland, had worked as a lawyer in Oklahoma before coming to Iraq.
Zangas, 44, a father of three, was a Marine reservist who had already served a five-month tour in Iraq when he volunteered to return as a civilian to help train Iraqis how to be radio, television and newspaper journalists.
He'd arrived for the second time in December and planned to go home at the end of June, just in time to return again with his Marine unit for another year.
posted by thomcatspike at 3:20 PM on March 16, 2004

From the blog:
"When we do get off campus, as I have mentioned here before, we zoom along the roads with reckless abandon (110 miles per hour. I am not making that up. I would take a picture of the speedometer, but my hands are “white-knuckle gripped” on the hand-hold to get my camera out!) But I look out the windows and see some pretty cool stuff. I wish I could stop and take pictures to show you:"

"I did slow down at a check-point to get a shot of these brave guys. They are more of a target than the Americans are these days. Friendly to a “T.” Of course we have outfitted them, given them decent salaries, weapons, training, cool equipment and fast cars with loud sirens. They have no problem waving to us!"

After the news items about the shooting at fake checkpoints, I find myself hoping his willingness to slow down and wave wasn't his undoing.

RIP
posted by anastasiav at 3:20 PM on March 16, 2004

he manages to personify what is so good and so bad about americans - trying to help so much he gives up his life while saying things like "The Iraqis tell me that they are rich in history and the like. Perhaps they are." what a mess.

(no disrespect intended - i can see myself in a lot of his naive stabs at trying to understand a strange culture)
posted by andrew cooke at 3:21 PM on March 16, 2004

.
posted by stevis at 3:38 PM on March 16, 2004

Terrible. Seems like there's been a lot more attacks by police lately, too.

It still seems wierd to me that the FBI is investigating, but I guess that's part-and-parcel of a messed-up situation. Have they always had responsibility for deaths of Americans abroad?
posted by freebird at 3:38 PM on March 16, 2004

.
posted by Wulfgar! at 3:50 PM on March 16, 2004

Really, really sad. He seemed like a good guy who cared a lot about the people he was working with. This is too bad. What a tragedy.
posted by subgenius at 4:07 PM on March 16, 2004

Stuff like this really tears at me; do we pull out of Iraq so that stuff like this doesn't happen to us or do we stay in and help those that are friendly to us and protect them from the trouble that will come if/when we leave?

My mom grew up in Poland (born in '46) and she still hates FDR and Churchill for selling out Poland to the Soviets. Even Soviet POWs who were freed by the Western allies begged their liberators not to send them home to Stalin. There was nothing that those guys could do though...
posted by crazy finger at 4:19 PM on March 16, 2004

Why were the Iraqi police chasing him?
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:15 PM on March 16, 2004

.
posted by moonbiter at 5:51 PM on March 16, 2004

Incredibly tragic, the suffering of the good.
posted by the fire you left me at 6:44 PM on March 16, 2004

Zangas' death is sad, but he does come off as a bit of an Alden Pyle. In any case, he most certainly is now a quiet American.

"Do we pull out of Iraq so that stuff like this doesn't happen to us or do we stay in and help those that are friendly to us and protect them from the trouble that will come if/when we leave?"

The level of confrontation could decrease and international support could increase significantly within a week if we simply decide to let the UN take over.

The sad yet simple fact is that Iraq's fate ultimately lies in the hands of its people. It's not for us to save or destroy them. Our country could diffuse the violence by being less personally involved in Iraq, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't aid in Iraq's reconstruction or not provide the Iraqis assistance to get going again.

Besides, the really important things going on in Iraq aren't being done by the guys holding the M-16s -- most of the time they're hunkered down anyways -- but by the businessmen, the construction engineers, the policemen, and the guy who runs the restraunt down the street.
posted by insomnia_lj at 7:11 PM on March 16, 2004

I found out that more than a few projects are fraught with corruption. Here is one story: A road project was bid on and won by local sheiks. His modus operandi is to win contracts for road work using a fictitious company name. Then, he used the “Road Works” department at the local City Hall to do the labor while using the local government equipment. He pocketed the labor costs—because the guys were already getting paid a salary—and didn’t have to have his own machinery. Pretty good scam.

That's probably one of the reasons behind his assasination, if not the main reason. Ruining some powerful man business and exposing him is still very much a reason for being killed in any country in world (not excluding the so called civilized europe and usa).

Expecially an honest person teaching that media must be indipendent and unbiased, and who that dared publish a weblog exposing what seem to be "not retouched" pictures and stories that thousands could reach in a split second for free is certainly not well seen in the eyes of many ; not even in the West.

Unfortunately it seems that in the incredibly impoverished iraq it's relatively easy to hire a thug to do the dirty work so getting rid of he, blessed whistleblower, was easy expecially because he was American.

Or maybe, he just was killed by a fanatic. I don't buy into that.

R.I.P. dude.
posted by elpapacito at 8:18 PM on March 16, 2004

I think it is safe to assume that the Iraqis who killed the US civilians may have been dressed as Iraqi police, and may have even really been policemen, but they did the killings as terrorists, not as policemen.
posted by gen at 8:18 PM on March 16, 2004

About 3 dozen FBI personnel are stationed in Baghdad assisting the CPA and Iraqi police forces. Their mission is chiefly getting information from Iraqi files to identify Baathist agents and sympathizers, and investigating terrorism against civilians (the military takes jurisdiction over force protection issues), and assisting Iraqi police as requested (they are helping investigate the bombing of the Shi'ite imam).

Fern Holland, killed along with Zangas, helped write the women's rights portion of the Iraqi constitution. She was 33. Hometown TV profile. She was also part Cherokee.

CD: The people dressed as Iraqi police, who were caught by Polish troops driving the victims' SUV with the bodies in the trunk, are presently assumed to have been guerrillas dressed as police -- though the possibility exists they had legit badges and had infiltrated the police.
posted by dhartung at 8:21 PM on March 16, 2004

It still seems wierd to me that the FBI is investigating, but I guess that's part-and-parcel of a messed-up situation. Have they always had responsibility for deaths of Americans abroad?


Given that Iraq is a US-occupied territory now, Iraq isn't "abroad." It's our home turf. We "won" it. Working out great for us, ain't it?
posted by brookish at 9:31 PM on March 16, 2004

The level of confrontation could decrease and international support could increase significantly within a week if we simply decide to let the UN take over.

Pardon me for disagreeing but wasn't the UN in Iraq before it bolted out of there faster than Fred Flinstone at quitting time when insurgents decided to give them a wakeup call? The UN has no stake in Iraq so I highly doubt they would put up with the body count that the US has faced just to help another nation in a state of crisis.

What the US is facing in Iraq is insurgents, mostly from other countries, who have but one desire which is to shape Iraq into another Taliban-era Afghanistan. The Iraqis don't want it but if you turn the reigns over to the UN they'll gladly bug out and turn the keys over to whoever plants the biggest car bomb in front of their headquarters.

Agree or disagree with the war, the reasons for the war, or what you think of the US in general but even the Iraqis know that they're better off with the US there than if they bug out and turn it over to the UN.
posted by billman at 9:35 PM on March 16, 2004

Maybe someone should post an FPP about Iraq so we don't have to argue about it here?
posted by subgenius at 10:00 PM on March 16, 2004

"wasn't the UN in Iraq before it bolted out of there faster than Fred Flinstone at quitting time when insurgents decided to give them a wakeup call?"

You're making a distinction between UN aid volunteers and UN soldiers, and you are also ignoring the fact that UN peacekeepers working to bring about a democratic Iraq would be a far less attractive political target than US soldiers, *AND* that the UN would be more committed to Iraq if the Iraqi people -- not the US government -- were calling the shots.

UN peacekeepers have been in Afghanistan for years now, and haven't bugged out despite losing people. Keeping the peace in Afghanistan has also had a far lower per capita death rate than in Iraq.

" the Iraqis know that they're better off with the US there than if they bug out and turn it over to the UN."

Not so. In a poll done this month by Oxford Research for the BBC, fifty-one percent said they objected to the US-coaltion forces occupying Iraq, against 39% who supported them. Just a quarter said they had confidence in US-led occupation forces to deliver their needs. Almost a fifth of those questioned said attacks on US coalition forces were acceptable.

While most Iraqis do want peacekeepers to stay until there is an Iraqi government in place -- which they want in place ASAP -- they clearly can't be said to favor US-led peacekeepers.

Check your facts next time, eh?!
posted by insomnia_lj at 10:11 PM on March 16, 2004

I'd offer my condolences to people that knew this person, but they don't know who I am, nor, very likely, do they care.

These people were trying to do something in a hostile environment which killed them. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm just saying that it's a thing.

According to the WHO road accidents killed around 1.2 million people in 2000. All of them were people trying to do something in a hostile environment which killed them. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm just saying that it's a thing.
posted by snarfodox at 10:53 PM on March 16, 2004

My deepest condolences to his family and loved ones.
posted by matteo at 3:57 AM on March 17, 2004

Doesn't anyone think his killing had something to do with the fact that he was educating women and that he was with someone who wrote women's rights into their new Constitution? Isn't women's rights the thing the Muslim world fears most?
posted by girard31 at 6:33 AM on March 17, 2004

the entire world fears naive, clueless, heavily-armed jarheads. thats why that's who always fights the wars, cuz old rich fuckers can afford not to go die in shitholes, and they're sufficiently aged to refuse voluntary suicide. your 15 year old iraqi martyr is, in this regard, no different from the 19 year old gung ho american jarhead. your ayatollahs are no different in this regard from your george dubyuhs. hold high this young man's picture, gnash teeth and wail over his loss if you will but this is just the same old tired story since the dawn of time. while this one can't be faulted for not having perceived this evil setup and refusing to participate, and seems to have sucessfully drunk the imperialist koolaid (to save them we must first make war on them) and i'm sure managed to see himself in the role of benevolent rebuilder for at least a short time, and probably beleived he was actually helping open a new, improved era for the downtrodden of iraq, the fact remains he's nothing we ain't seen before - the fact remains that he is nothing but cannon fodder. and he always was. pity he never knew.
posted by quonsar at 8:00 AM on March 17, 2004

Isn't women's rights the thing the Muslim world fears most?

I thought women have had western style rights in secular Iraq. Unless Saddam was cramming them down everybodys collective throat, that fact that women's rights should be recognized should hardly be surprising to most Iraqis.
posted by thirteen at 8:12 AM on March 17, 2004

Doesn't anyone think his killing had something to do with the fact that he was educating women and that he was with someone who wrote women's rights into their new Constitution?
girard31, yes, the article was linked in my comment above:)

thirteen you may want to do some more research. Saddame covered his life through wealth but was very barbaric.
posted by thomcatspike at 8:28 AM on March 17, 2004

quonsar: what makes you think he didn't know that he was potentially 'cannon fodder'? We can't really know what he was thinking, so we can't really comment on his possible naiveté or lack thereof. With a past history of being in the country he doesn't really come across as a naïve do-gooder out to 'change the world for the better' and he doesn't read like he wants to grind the people under the iron heels of his jackboots. We can't really be sure about any of his beliefs except perhaps that he thought he was going to be able to avoid the bullets. A lot of people seem to think that they're going to avoid the bullets.

I also think that you're giving the Ayatollahs and George Dubyuhs of the world an awful lot of credit for creating the current state of affairs. There is a lot of history, sociology and psychology behind all of this. Some of the participants feel like they're engaged in a battle of civilizations. There are a huge number of (apparently) incompatible beliefs that divide the groups involved which have been smoldering for a lot longer than a single US presidential term.
posted by snarfodox at 10:05 AM on March 17, 2004

you apparently missed the phrase "since the dawn of time", snarfodox. :-)
posted by quonsar at 5:32 PM on March 17, 2004

quonsar: Actually I was carefully ignoring it so I could say what I wanted to say anyway...
posted by snarfodox at 12:28 PM on March 18, 2004