[Hat tip to LGF]
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| Fifth Column |
| On rescuing Private Lynch and forgetting Rachel Corrie |
| 2003-05-22 |
| All we need is violins in the background. Get out your tissues. The lefty deification of Saint Rachel continues... The Israeli army got away with murder - and now all activists are at risk So tell them to take the friggin' hint... By Naomi Klein Jessica Lynch and Rachel Corrie could have passed for sisters. Two all-American blondes, two destinies for ever changed in a Middle East war zone. Private Jessica Lynch, the soldier, was born in Palestine, West Virginia. Rachel Corrie, the activist, died in Israeli-occupied Palestine. Corrie was four years older than 19-year-old Lynch. Her body was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza seven days before Lynch was taken into Iraqi custody on March 23. Before she went to Iraq, Lynch organised a pen-pal programme with a local kindergarten. Before Corrie left for Gaza, she organised a pen-pal programme between kids in her hometown of Olympia, Washington, and children in Rafah. Maybe the kids in Olympia sent flags to the kids in Rafah and Rachel taught them how to burn them... Lynch went to Iraq as a soldier loyal to her government. Corrie went to Gaza to oppose the actions of her government. As a US citizen, she believed she had a special responsibility to defend Palestinians against US-built weapons, purchased with US aid to Israel. In letters home, she described how fresh water was being diverted from Gaza to Israeli settlements, how death was more normal than life. "This is what we pay for here," she wrote. Unlike Lynch, Corrie did not go to Gaza to engage in combat: she went to try to thwart it. Along with her fellow members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), she believed that the Israeli military's incursions could be slowed by the presence of highly visible "internationals". The killing of Palestinian civilians may have become commonplace, the thinking went, but Israel doesn't want the diplomatic or media scandals that would come if it killed a US student. In retrospect, I would say... she was... WRONG! In a way, Corrie was harnessing the very thing that she disliked most about her country: the belief that American lives are worth more than any others — and trying to use it to save a few Palestinian homes from demolition. Believing her fluorescent orange jacket would serve as armour, Corrie stood in front of bulldozers, slept beside wells and escorted children to school. If suicide bombers turn their bodies into weapons of death, Corrie turned hers into the opposite — a weapon of life, a "human shield". Oh... please... my tissues... where are my tissues... When that Israeli bulldozer driver looked at Corrie's orange jacket and pressed the accelerator, her strategy failed. OOOOOOPS! It turns out that the lives of some US citizens — even beautiful, young, white women — are valued more than others. And nothing demonstrates this more starkly than the opposing responses to Rachel Corrie and Pte Jessica Lynch. When the Pentagon announced Lynch's successful rescue, she became a hero, complete with "America loves Jessica" fridge magnets, stickers, T-shirts, mugs, country songs and an NBC made-for-TV movie. According to White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, President George Bush was "full of joy for Jessica Lynch". Her rescue, we were told, was a testament to a core American value: as West Virginia senator Jay Rockefeller said to the Senate: "We take care of our people." Do they? Corrie's death, which made the papers for two days and then virtually disappeared, has met with almost total official silence, despite the fact that eyewitnesses claim it was a deliberate act. President Bush has said nothing about a US citizen killed by a US-made bulldozer bought with US tax dollars. A US congressional resolution demanding an independent inquiry has been buried in committee, leaving the Israeli military's investigation — which cleared itself of any wrongdoing — as the only official investigation. And you know why, Naomi? Because she was some lunatic leftwing whack job who put herself in the position of getting run over by a bulldozer. She wanted to be a human shield? She GOT to be a human shield! Bigtime! The ISM says that this non-response has sent a clear, and dangerous, signal. According to Olivia Jackson, a 25-year-old British citizen in Rafah: "After Rachel was killed, [the Israeli military] waited for the response from the American government and the response was pathetic. They know they can get away with it, and it has encouraged them to keep on going." Yeah, it was all part of that evil Zionist plan. First there was Brian Avery, a 24-year-old US citizen shot in the face on April 5. Then Tom Hurndall, a British ISM activist shot in the head and left brain dead on April 11. Next was James Miller, the British cameraman shot dead while wearing a vest that said "TV". In all of these cases, eyewitnesses say the shooters were Israeli soldiers. Remember, folks. It's "Human SHIELD", not "Human Dilletante". And your opponent plays for keeps.And uses real bullets. There is something else that Jessica Lynch and Rachel Corrie have in common: both of their stories have been distorted by the military for its own purposes. According to the official story, Lynch was captured in a bloody gun battle, mistreated by sadistic Iraqi doctors, then rescued in another storm of bullets by heroic Navy Seals. In the past weeks, another version has emerged. The doctors who treated Lynch found no evidence of battle wounds, and donated their own blood to save her life. Most embarrassing of all, witnesses have told the BBC that those daring Navy Seals already knew there were no Iraqi fighters left in the area when they stormed the hospital. Naomi might want to do a little more research on this story. The BBC has been ripped to shreds on it. But while Lynch's story has been distorted to make its protagonists appear more heroic, Corrie's story has been posthumously twisted to make her, and her fellow ISM activists, appear sinister. For months, the Israeli military had been looking for an excuse to get rid of the ISM "troublemakers". It found it in Assif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, the two British suicide bombers. It turns out that they had attended a memorial service for Corrie in Rafah, a fact the Israeli military has seized on to link the ISM to terrorism. Members of ISM point out that the event was open to the public, and that they knew nothing of the British visitors' intentions. We know nothing! NOTHING!!Who? Assif? Omar? Who? Bombing? What? Doesn't anybody realize we've been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize? In the past two weeks, half a dozen ISM activists have been arrested, several deported, and the organisation's offices raided. The crackdown is spreading to all "internationals", meaning there are fewer people in the occupied territories to either witness the abuses or assist the victims. On Monday, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process told the security council that dozens of UN aid workers had been prevented from getting in and out of Gaza, calling it a violation of "Israel's international humanitarian law obligations". The UN comes down on Israel. That's original. On June 5 there will be a international day of action for Palestinian rights. I'll mark it down on my calendar. One of the demands is for the UN to send a monitoring force into the occupied territories. Until that happens, many are determined to continue Corrie's work. More than 40 students at her former college, Evergreen State, Olympia, have signed up to go to Gaza with the ISM this summer. Evergreen State? What kinda crap is the faculty peddling there? So who is a hero? During the attack on Iraq, some of Corrie's friends emailed her picture to MSNBC asking that it be included on the station's "wall of heroes", along with Jessica Lynch. Words fail me here... The network didn't comply, but Corrie is being honoured in other ways. Her family has received more than 10,000 letters of support, communities across the country have organised memorial services, and children from the occupied territories are being named Rachel. It's not a made-for-TV kind of tribute, but maybe that's for the best. Yep, cry me a river, Naomi. Poor dumb, deluded, dead Rachel. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #23 Human Shields...a good way to thin the herd. |
| Posted by: debbie 2003-05-22 21:56:51 |
| #22 It was here I read someone ask did Corrie get 72 buff dudes for her jihadi death. |
| Posted by: badanov 2003-05-22 20:03:08 |
| #21 Rachel Corrie was ignorant, naive and stupid. The worst thing we can do is read any significance into her death. My reaction is to nominate her for a Darwin Award. http://www.darwinawards.com/ |
| Posted by: Phil B 2003-05-22 19:18:57 |
| #20 Note how Corrie "slept beside wells". Of course. Right out of the Protocols of Zion. Jews poison water supplies. Naomi Klein, I've only heard of self-hating Jews. I guess I've just read the works of one. How sad. |
| Posted by: michael 2003-05-22 15:49:14 |
| #19 Scott, she got EXACTLY what a thinking-person would expect to get were they to venture into a war-torn area between the combatants. She was aiding and abetting a point used to smuggle arms and terrorist militants. Combine those actions with her Anti-American rhetoric and you end up with a less-than-sympathetic character. |
| Posted by: Flaming Sword 2003-05-22 14:28:52 |
| #18 Exactamundo, tu - "They can't shoot ME, I'm an amurrican (sometimes)!" Guessed wrong, she did. Stupidity is it's own punishment. |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-05-22 13:56:30 |
| #17 Scott, Screw her. She went over there to play some leftist kumbaya game and got between people who DON'T play games. She probably thought she was immune to any possible consequences. She was wrong. DEAD wrong. For being naive and stupid, she paid with her life. Do I "rejoice" in that? No. But I don't lose any sleep over it either. If that makes me a "soul-less idiot", so be it. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-05-22 13:37:15 |
| #16 Someone on LGF noted that her feastday should be Shrove Tuesday and celebrated at an IHOP. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-05-22 13:10:05 |
| #15 This Klein chick is one leftist dudette. Check out her web site - lots of revolutionary red in the color scheme: http://www.nologo.org/ Quite a glimpse into the hate-filled mind of the radical left. |
| Posted by: ColoradoConservative 2003-05-22 12:43:34 |
| #14 This is nothing new for Klein: "The true faces of modern activism belong to people like the late Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American "human shield" whose young body was crushed by a bulldozer in Gaza last month. Corrie wasn't in the occupied territories to give comfort to suicide bombers; she was standing with the nonviolent International Solidarity Movement trying to keep a Palestinian family home from being demolished." Sorry, Namoi. That hair just won't split. And from the Guerilla News Network: "ISM members say they won't give up their operations in Rafah. "We are going to continue," ISM activist Joe told GNN. "Now they know we are hardcore, and we won't move. It [Rachel's death] will either make the Israelis more careful, or they will continue to injure and kill more activists, and we will be useless as human shields." You said it, Joe! But I don't suspect we'll see you putting your life on the line any time soon. "Thirty-two Americans, many with dual citizenship, have been killed by Palestinian suicide bombers, and 50 have been injured, since the second Palestinian uprising began in September 2000." A remarkable confession. [www.guerrillanews.com/human_rights/doc1176.html] Fuck you, Klein. [from www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15737] The skewed vision of the left is a wonder to encounter. |
| Posted by: FormerLiberal 2003-05-22 12:38:05 |
| #13 Scott, There was absolutely nothing in my post celebrating Corries death. And Poiters wrote "terrorist helper", not "terrorist". Please learn to read. And learning to think might be a good idea too. |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2003-05-22 12:35:46 |
| #12 One more excellent link: http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/Bulldozer_Accident.asp "The Washington Post (http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35126-2003Mar16.html) notes two important points: 1) soldiers driving an armored bulldozer have limited visibility because of the narrow window. 2) One of the ISM founders admits the protesters might not have been as disciplined in their protest as they should have been. Most media reports failed to mention that the IDF bulldozer was looking for smuggling tunnels. Instead, reports described the house sympathetically as "the home of a Gazan doctor." |
| Posted by: ColoradoConservative 2003-05-22 12:26:06 |
| #11 Alright. The name calling was juvenile. I apologize. But certainly no more juvenile than what prompted it. If my name calling was ad hominem, and it certainly was, then trashing a dead protester is epitome of ad hominem. Why can't people just speak to her stance? At least she took one. A terrorist, Poitiers? Would to God all terrorists spoke in her fashion, eh? |
| Posted by: Scott 2003-05-22 12:20:55 |
| #10 Here's an excellent link debunking the beatification of Corrie - I didn't find LGF that helpful: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO RACHEL CORRIE? http://www.btnhboard.com/~scrub/corrie.htm |
| Posted by: ColoradoConservative 2003-05-22 12:18:23 |
| #9 SCOTT: I do not speak for the others but to me the question seems to be this: the left has given birth to a monster, a culture in which the word responsibility is unknown and forgotten. To go in-between two parts at war means you do risk your life, and it is in itself a stupid thing. They try to make an hero of a person that does stupid things. Then there is the problem of values: being killed in defending the paleostinian terrorists is not exactly the same than fighting in TienAnMen square against one of the bigger dictatorships in the world. I don't think that on this forum anyone really rejoices about the death of any human being (even if, me the first, sometimes someone is really angry about the attacks against America from inside America), but it is really time to reset the values and call stupid a stupid, terrorist helper a terrorist helper. |
| Posted by: Poitiers 2003-05-22 12:11:36 |
| #8 CoCon: LGF = Little Green Footballs. A fine site up there with Rantburg, InstaPundit, etc. Scott: I don't rejoice, but I don't shed any tears over this moron. Count me among the soulless idiots if the shoe fits. |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-05-22 12:06:27 |
| #7 CC - a place where you'd be happier posting :) |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-05-22 12:05:03 |
| #6 Rachel lied down in front of an armored bulldozer (which all acknowledge couldn't see her through the tiny windows)to protect a house with a Paleo terrorist arms-smuggling tunnel access in it. I think she's better dead, and if you think that equates to smashing democracy activists in China, you need to get your moral equivalence meter adjusted Scott. CC: LGF is Little Green Footballs, another excellent weblog |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-05-22 12:04:59 |
| #5 Hey ru, Frank G, Chuck, Scooter, just a question. If you were conscious, who were you rooting for back in Tiananmen, the tanks or protesters? I don't agree with Corrie's stand or her methods. But I damn sure don't agree with soul-less idiots who rejoice over someone being run over by a bulldozer. |
| Posted by: Scott 2003-05-22 11:57:48 |
| #4 What the hell is/who "LGF"? BTW, this post-mortem lionization of Corrie reminds me of Arthur Schlesinger and Company's fabrication of Camelot. |
| Posted by: ColoradoConservative 2003-05-22 11:51:37 |
| #3 Here she is, the Angel of Peace(tm), teaching Paleo schoolchildren how to properly burn an American flag. [Hat tip to LGF] |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2003-05-22 11:21:24 |
| #2 Rachel Corrie died defending the rights of gun smugglers, drug dealers, and pimps. Wow! Now that's something to be proud of. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-05-22 11:15:14 |
| #1 on LGF - they've been referring to the Amerika-hating snarling she-bitch as "Saint Pancake" lol |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-05-22 11:12:29 |