CBS’ Lara Logan sexually assaulted in Cairo
Tman sends us a CBS News link to the revelation that South African-born Lara Logan was sexually assaulted for a prolonged period during the celebration of Hosni Mubarak’s resignation;
“In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently in the hospital recovering.”
I’m not familiar with her work, but according to her bio at CBS News, she was the first journalist into Afghanistan after the 9-11 attacks and she was the only journalist from a US news organization in Baghdad on the eve of the US assault.
Logan received an Emmy Award, an Overseas Press Club Award and a Murrow Award for “Ramadi: On the Front Line,” a powerful 2006 report on American troops under fire in Ramadi, Iraq, a piece Logan and her producer shot themselves while embedded with a U.S. military unit.
We wish her the best. She sounds like the type of journalist we would admire if she worked for another network…one we actually watched.
Category: Breaking News, Media
“We wish her the best. She sounds like the type of journalist we would admire if she worked for another network…one we actually watched.”
+1
Surely this heinous deed was committed by non-muslim, Christian pacifists. We have been told that Islam is nothing but peaceful and gives women total respect. sarcasm off.
Bastards need to be de-nutted!
This is horrid! Prayers to her!
I didn’t know she did the Ramadi piece; those are my old stomping grounds, and you had to have some huge cajones to set foot around there in 2006; we only saw one reporter in our entire tour. The platoon that relieved mine around that time had no fewer than six guys who came home missing at least one limb.
Very sorry to hear about this. From what little I’ve gleaned from peers who have visited Cairo, you don’t want to be a Western woman on your own in that city, even under the best conditions. Can’t imagine what that experience would be like. Hope she recovers, as much as one can from that kind of attack.
Lara has done work on several news pieces about U.S. military, including Special Forces and reports from the front lines of Afghanistan:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/14/eveningnews/main5160118.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/24/60minutes/main6897034.shtml
She has been fearless in terms of being in dangerous hot spots with our military.
She may have been fearless, but it didn’t stop her from becoming a victim (that whole law of averages thing). Hopes and prayers to her speedy recovery.
>Surely this heinous deed was committed by non-muslim, Christian pacifists. We have been told that Islam is nothing but peaceful and gives women total respect. sarcasm off.
You know before actually visiting Egypt in 07 when my husband was there- I probably would have taken offense to this, but they were awful to me. There was no respect. I was dressed very conservatively(arms and legs covered), and they still treated me like a crap. In the markets, the shopkeepers (in front of my husband who wanted to kill someone ) would touch me, and make sexually explicit comments to me.
You kninda knew something like this was coming. Doesn’t mean I like it, but with the MB running the show, it was only a matter of time before the really nasty part of arab society started to come out.
Logan is a mixed bag depending on the topic, including Iraq and Afghanistan.
From Howard Kurtz: “The assault occurred a week after Logan and her crew wound up in the custody of Egyptian military authorities. At first, she was essentially confined to her Alexandria hotel. “It was literally like flipping a switch,” Logan said in a video. “The army just shifted dramatically to a much more aggressive posture. They have absolutely prevented us from filming anywhere today—no cameras, no cameras, is what we’re being told.” She said when her crew went out to shoot so-called beauty shots, “they were intimidated and bullied, and in fact marched at gunpoint through the streets, all the way back to our hotel—a very frightening experience, and one that was repeated throughout the day for us.” After that video was made, Logan and her crew tried again, and were taken into custody. “We were detained by the Egyptian army,” Logan told Esquire. “Arrested, detained, and interrogated. Blindfolded, handcuffed, taken at gunpoint, our driver beaten. It’s the regime that arrested us. They arrested [our producer] just outside of his hotel, and they took him off the road at gunpoint, threw him against the wall, handcuffed him, blindfolded him. Took him into custody like that.” There was more: “They blindfolded me, but they said if I didn’t take it off they wouldn’t tie my hands. They kept us in stress positions—they wouldn’t let me put my head down. It was all through the night. We were pretty exhausted… We were accused of being Israeli spies. We were accused of being agents. We were accused of everything.” In the process, Logan said, she became “violently, violently ill.” The army eventually released Logan and the crew. And then, because it is hard to keep Logan away from a hot foreign story, she went back.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-02-15/lara-logan-of-cbs-news-attacked-in-egypts-tahrir-square-what-she-faced/ Ok; why is it that reporters feel they don’t have to follow rules? Did it ever occur to her that the military was trying to keep her safe? Nope, it has to be because of the Mubarak regime, they’re eeeevil. They don’t want us taking any pictures or being outside because they’re trying to cover up their… Read more »
She was part of the war is lost crowd during the surge in Iraq. I have seen her report a lot of stuff from Iraq that wa peppered with her own personal opinions, so yeah like Cedo said she’s a mixed bag.
That being said I hope she has a quick recovery, nobody deserves to be treated that way…but it is a segment of that “culture”.
Logan is a stand up reporter who did a small piece on some of my Soldiers in 2006. We found her very fair and supportive of the troops.
Old Trooper, usually I agree with your comments, but here it seems like you’re OK with what happened because she was doing her job in the face of opposition by the government. There’s a lot of journalists who inject themselves into environments where presumably they aren’t wanted, why does that eliminate your sympathy for her?
Do you really think that the Mubarak regime’s efforts as described in your post were born out of some chilvarous effort to protect the reporters (versus an effort to protect the regime)?
Whether she is a mainstream media turd or not, she didn’t do anything to deserve that. At least she was out there amongst them trying to do the job. That puts her way out ahead of most of her associates like Chimney Couric.
I’m not ok with what happened, but why would you purposely put yourself in a position where something like this could happen? While it’s unfortunate that it did happen, she should have known better than to run into the middle of something she had zero control over without even a basic defense or protection plan. The same people she denigrated were the ones that saved her. Just as code pinko found out when they were carjacked and in the process of being taken into captivity. If not for the intervention of an Egyptian military officer at a checkpoint, they were on their way to being captives. The story goes that they were on their cellphones calling anyone and everyone they could think of as they were being driven away, but to no avail. I was surprised to read that they were even allowed to use their phones to begin with.
No, I don’t think the military was out to protect the Mubarak regime, but rather to keep control of a situation that was starting to get out of hand. Leave the emotionalism out of it, because I didn’t mention chivalry, as a motive, either.
Who would have been blamed and tasked with rescuing Lara or the code pinkos? The Egyptian military, that’s who. Did they have more pressing and important things to worry about than rescuing someone that refused their orders? Probably. Do you remember during the first Gulf War, when Bob Simon was grabbed by the Iraqis? How did that happen? He didn’t listen to the coalition forces that told him and his camera crew “don’t go past this line or we can’t protect you”. Did Bob and his crew listen? Nope.
During the OEF/OIF are the reporters told to stay out of areas by the military? Is it because the military is trying to protect a regime, or is it for the safety of the reporter? Why is it that we give our military the benefit of the doubt about their motivations, but we can’t do so with the Egyptian military in this instance?
@OldTrooper,
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
“Why is it that we give our military the benefit of the doubt about their motivations, but we can’t do so with the Egyptian military in this instance?”
Well, for starters I’d point out that their attentions seemed to be based on the fact that Logan and her crew were journalists, not as part of some sort of NEO or its equivalent.
Beyond that, the US military (and our civilian leadership) has earned the benefit of the doubt. I’ve not seen anything yet that firmly explains the Egyptian military’s agenda, goals, or desired end-state. I certainly wouldn’t assume that they were trying to protect her by their actions absent some other evidence.
I don’t think Egyptian military can be blamed for what happened to Logan – on the contrary, they rescued her. I also think that, contrary to Code Pink harpies, Logan was probably well aware of the risks she was taking by reporting the story as it happened. I just don’t see why you’d have “no sympathy” for her because she didn’t comply with orders given by one player in a revolutionary setting.
@Pmm
I think situational awareness applies. The very least she could have done is thought “hmmm I’m a women, these are crowds of angry men who come from a culture that treats women like shyte. MAYBE its not a good idea to go out and get in the thick of things”
I know there are a number of courses out there about Rape prevention and post rape response, that always emphasize that the victim was NEVER “asking for it” despite whatever clothes she might have been wearing or where she may have been. In the immediate aftermath, and from a councilor’s stand point I get that it’s kinda difficult to tell a woman “you probably shouldn’t have been wearing a skirt that barely covers your ass, and walking down a dark alley” but there comes a time when it is no longer a functional response to say “its not your fault”.
I don’t know what she was wearing, but I know for a fact that the where just screams bad idea, as Code Pink found out. I don’t doubt that no one in the crew or she herself had “rape” as a possible consequence, but, if we accept that “Rape isn’t about sex it is about power” (a theory I don’t ENTIRELY agree with) then we also assume the crowd is angry at a regime that has been propped up by the US, er go the US is (at least partly) to blame for their troubles, then this is an immediate way for those on the ground to prove to themselves that they are dominant over the US.
I am not saying by any means that this attack was warranted, right, or should be played down, but I’m kinda with OT on this. She made a bad call and paid the price for it. Having said that, as a man, I would LOVE to beat the ever loving SNOT out of the people that did it. YOU DON’T DO THAT TO WOMEN!!!
You’re welcome. I guess I just can’t muster up the amount of sympathy others are displaying. Some, yes, but not as much as if she were unknowingly put in that position. She wasn’t even there to cover that, but rather to interview the dude from google for 60 minutes. Like the dude that lived with bears in the wild and would wrestle with them and walk amongst them and then was mauled and killed by them. Or, the guy that would photograph them, was never armed with a proper sidearm (he was anti-gun, plus the bears were his friends) and the last picture he took was of a bear ripping through the end of his tent to eat him. Tragic? Yes. But it’s hard to muster too much sympathy because they chose to not be prepared for what could happen in that situation. So, I do have some sympathy towards her, because she probably expected them to act like humans instead of animals (even though she should have known better from her extensive knowledge of the area) but like I said, not as much as others here.
A few things… 1) Armies tend to reflect the socities that create them. The relationship between the US military, a product of a Western AngloSaxon tradition, where standing armies are suspect, and have defined powers of employment, is fairly unique. In only rare circumstances is the military turned on fellow citizens, like insurrection(indians, Mormons, and Confederates etc), riots, and natural disasters. Loyalty to the nation trumps loyalty to the military(as it should).Oaths are to the constitution and the nation. The Egyptian Army is an Arab Army, product of a society where the arbitray exercise of power is common. Like many 3rd world nations(like Mexico) the army does routine police functions amongst its own people partly because its the only entity that can, will, or be trusted to do so. It’s an Institution that has directly involved itself in politics since the nation’s inception, it overthrew the Monarchy and supported Mubark. If the US military’s professionilsm has rubbed off, hey great, but I’m not holding my breath. Also what other institution outside the military is respected/powerful/influencial enough to participate in governing the nation? Answer The mosques. 2) On Lara Logan, like I said before, mixed bag. A) I can recall on a show with Anderson Cooper as late as 07′ say the war was nearly lost(can’t remember exact date sorry, if you can me correct/challenge go ahead). B) Her piece on Special Forces a year or two ago has been panned. I think Herschel Smith at captain’s Journal, and Joshua Fouste at Registan, and Tim over at Free Range International all have posts about it. I distinctly remember not liking the piece and thinking to myself “am I the only one thinking this”, those three covered most of my objections. Ironically I can’t remember the piece itself anymore and I’m too lazy to look it up. Yeah I know crappy rejoiner. C) CBS had those periodic internet discussions(I think HotAir used to have a link) with a reporter(s) and an expert(s), I don’t know if they still do. Sometime in the summer of 09′ as Obama “dithered” she did one on… Read more »
Ok, last night they were talking about this non-stop and I wondered to myself; why didn’t they make this big of a deal out of Anderson Cooper or Greg Palkot, who were both attacked and beaten (Palkot worse than Cooper) before this happened? Is it because she’s a female? Is that the reason? If it is, then it also makes the argument for keeping women out of combat units where they could become prisoners and have this happen to them constantly.
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