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| Iraq-Jordan | |||
| Iraq Car Bomb Kills American | |||
| 2005-04-18 | |||
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Marla Ruzicka died Saturday in a car bombing in Iraq, where she had been on and off since the March 2003 invasion began, conducting door-to-door surveys to determine the number of civilian casualties, friends and family said.
"We've been very worried about her, but we know better than to tell our children not to do anything. We were supportive and just reminded her to be careful," said her mother, Nancy Ruzicka. She said her daughter had left her a telephone message the night before her death, saying, "Mom and dad, I love you. I'm OK." "She cared about people and gave people her love and help," she said. "I'll remember the love she spread around the world and the good ambassador that she was for her country." Ruzicka helped acquire millions of dollars from the federal government for distribution in Iraq. "She came to us with the idea of putting a special fund in the foreign aid bill to take care of projects to help people whose businesses had been bombed by the U.S by mistake or collateral damage of some sort," Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said Sunday. "Just from the force of her personality, we decided to take a chance on it," said Leahy, who planned to speak about Ruzicka on the Senate floor Monday and possibly help organize a memorial service for her in Washington. "She was constantly calling us to say they're moving too slowly," he said. "She was kind of a one-person department over there ... moving the money around." Benjamin recalled that Ruzicka walked into the Global Exchange office 10 years ago as a "pretty, peppy, vivacious young woman who wanted to learn about the world." "She had this real thirst to learn and always had a tremendous sense of compassion," Benjamin said. "She was quite remarkable in her ability to absorb different issues, quickly learn about other cultures and become an ally to people all over the world." Ruzicka was set to leave Iraq within a week, according to the New York-based group Human Rights Watch. "Everyone who met Marla was struck by her incredible effervescence and commitment," Kenneth Roth, the group's executive director, said in a statement. "She was courageous and relentless in pursuit of accurate information about civilians caught up in war." In an essay Ruzicka sent to Human Rights Watch a few days before her death, she explained the significance of her work assessing casualties. "A number is important not only to quantify the cost of the war, but to me each number is also a story of someone whose hopes, dreams and potential will never be realized, and who left behind a family," Ruzicka wrote. When President Bush announced in March 2003 that the invasion of Iraq had begun, Ruzicka was already in Baghdad with Code Pink, said Jodi Evans, the co-founder of the women's anti-war group. "Bush came on television saying the game is over, we're invading Iraq," Evans recalled. Other activists decided to return to the United States to talk about how the Iraqi people were affected by the invasion, but Ruzicka made a commitment to stay. She founded the group CIVIC that year. "Marla thought she would be more effective staying, because once the bombs started falling, people would be hurt and she needed to help them get their lives back together," Evans said.
Even as fighting continued to rage in sections of Baghdad in mid-April 2003, Ruzicka arrived back in the Iraqi capital, set up office in an unprotected hotel and soon was a regular visitor to the city's makeshift newsrooms, encouraging media interest in the civilian-casualty story. Ruzicka is among several foreign aid workers killed in Iraq. Others included Margaret Hassan, a British aid worker who was abducted in Baghdad in October and later shown on video pleading for her life, and four workers for a Southern Baptist missionary group who were trying to find a way to provide clean water to people in the northern city of Mosul. A funeral service was scheduled for Saturday in Lakeport. | |||
| Posted by:Steve |
| #28 sorry, no sympathy here. This is not a sport. She did great damage by seeking to make the fascists' PR points for them. A little perspective: imagine she were a foreigner intervening to make her case for one side in another war-- let's say she went to Belgrade ten years ago solely to document NATO's civilian serb victims. In other words, to help spread the message of Milosevic and Karadzic and their ilk. Why would any decent person consider this an admirable and "humanitarian" act? How is it different from publicizing the Coalition's civilian Iraqi victims? Don't go soft, folks. This is a war against a fascist death cult that is determined to slaughter as many innocents-- muslim, christian, agnostic, whatever so long as they oppose the death cult-- as it possibly can. Those who aid the fascists deserve not one second of mercy. Good riddance to this little fellow traveler. Harsh? Yes, because our enemy's harsh. She aided Zarqawi. Unforgiveable. And no, I'm not a Christian. |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-18 10:47:34 PM |
| #27 Point of Order ladies and gents. You are falling for their rhetoric (the lefts), that they are truely humanitarian and really care about the people. Don't believe it for a minute, just vist any of their websites and review the articles. They would have loved it if that bomb had struck some troops that continue an "Illegal occupation" after and "Illegal War" angaist people of Iraq. No talk of liberation, terrorist, or democratic voting. I may not be sharpest knife in the drawer but I know a dog when I see a dog. She was counting (oh they are always counting) the number of Iraqi civilians that were killed during the liberation of that country. There have been many counts, but the numbers are too LOW for the lefties to acknowlege. Just like the elections they are always wanting a recount. I am not happy that another person died in iraq but I still hold that it is very Ironic/Funny that it was someone from one of the lefts groups. JAF, props for the Mike Moore eating a bomb joke, that would be extremly funny! |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2005-04-18 7:36:40 PM |
| #26 I agree, phil_b. She was enlightened as to what was really going on in Iraq and paid the price for her convictions. She may have started out as a real naive Moonbat but I don't think she was when she was killed. Also the reports don't tend to give credence to an assaination. She was caught up in the extreme evil of the religion of death. I think she, as with a lot of other people who expierience war first hand, changed when she was confronted with the truth about what was going on in Iraq. Other "human shields" showed their true stripes by running when the war started. She went their to help and had the guts to stay. Just my take. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2005-04-18 7:00:47 PM |
| #25 By the way, Wretchard wrote something about this incident: http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2005/04/marla-ruzicka-anyone-who-wants-to.html |
| Posted by: JackAssFestival 2005-04-18 6:45:42 PM |
| #24 She may have gone to Iraq as a Rabid Lefty but started to get a clue when she saw what was actually happening there. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-04-18 6:24:40 PM |
| #23 From what I've seen she was not a rabid anti American type. Not a flag burner like Rachel Corrie. She was doing work for Code Pink but for some reason she strikes me as about as real a "humanitarian activist" as a Rantburger will find these days. She was naive. Now she's gone in a place she was trying to do some good. She was coming from a good place even if misguided. Which doesn't make her beyond reproach but..... |
| Posted by: sea cruise 2005-04-18 5:59:38 PM |
#22 I, too, am disinclined to pile on here. James Taranto, in today's "Best of the Web," explains why better than I could:From what we'd read when we wrote about her almost three years ago, Ruzicka sounded like a typical Angry Left prima donna. But an August 2004 report in the Washington Post persuades us that either we judged her too harshly or she matured in the last few years of her life . . . |
| Posted by: Mike 2005-04-18 5:16:15 PM |
| #21 JAF, This lady and others are cloaking themselves with the humanitarian title all the time aiding the terrorists and detractors in Iraq. The counts and recounts of the Iraqi 'victims' never satisfies the left hunger to paint Bush in a bad light and lend aid and comfort to OUR enemies. I feel for her parents but I bet they applauded and probably encouraged her activism. Sometimes when you play with fire you are going to get burned and she got burned. Not gleeful for any death, but it boderlines funny-ironic for me. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2005-04-18 4:39:43 PM |
| #20 I dunno... one asshat American activist in Iraq would be pretty easy to kill. All you'd have to do is promise her pictures of US troops killing children, and she'd follow you anywhere. As they like to say in Compton, "She was in the wrong place at the wrong time". |
| Posted by: BH 2005-04-18 4:02:02 PM |
| #19 You're onto something, Jimbo. If she was indeed collecting such data, then of course she would have been targeted for slaughter. Given that any foreigner in Iraq, let alone an American woman freelancer, would have fairly high chance of being killed by the, um, insurgents, what are the chances that an American woman freelancer who was and "collecting data on civilian deaths caused by the insurgents" was not targeted for slaughter by them? How do say, zip, nil, nada in Arabic? |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-18 3:43:43 PM |
| #18 What is strange about this, is that I heard it this morning on NPR. In their story they quietly mentioned that this woman had just announced that she was collecting data on civilian deaths caused by the insurgents. strange that NPR did not question that coincidence with her sudden death. Had it been the other way around I doubt NPR would have missed it. |
| Posted by: Jimbo19 2005-04-18 3:20:23 PM |
| #17 This was Marla in Afghanistan, 2002... "Smart bombs are only as smart as people on the ground," Ms. Ruzicka said. "Before you bomb, you should be 100 percent certain of who you are bombing." Words to live by, Marla. Or die by, in your case. Wonder what her opinion was on the smarts of her "freedom fighter" friends? Wonder what they are now? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2005-04-18 1:43:27 PM |
| #16 Bomb Kills American Idiot |
| Posted by: legolas 2005-04-18 1:27:44 PM |
| #15 Sorry but anyone who sets out to help only the "victims of American bombs" in a war zone is a partisan, not a humanitarian. I have zero sympathy for the partisans of the fascist cause. |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-18 1:10:38 PM |
| #14 If you laid all her lifetime efforts out to the perpetrators of the attack, they would still celebrate the death of an infidel. Nuff said |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-04-18 12:53:46 PM |
| #13 An additional note. I hope her death will give a clue to the moonbats that there are people who hate us, no matter what our politics are and the seriousness of the evil poised against us needs to be dealt with. (won't hold my breath though) |
| Posted by: JackAssFestival 2005-04-18 12:38:22 PM |
| #12 I understand where you guys are coming from. Admittedly, if Michael Moore ate the bomb sandwhich maybe I would feel some satisfaction at the irony. But the beating christian heart inside of me won't let me have any of it in this case. I don't know, maybe my crustiness is wearing off. Don't think any less of me, alright. |
| Posted by: JackAssFestival 2005-04-18 12:33:13 PM |
| #11 In the Rachel Corrie redux vein, did you see this blog item from Steven Plaut (h/t LGF) regards making the Moonbats get a grip? It is a very powerful rebuff to the idiots. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-04-18 12:32:18 PM |
| #10 I request that we don't make any jokes about a victim of a terrorist action. Considering who the victim is in this case, I'm not feeling too guilty about it. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-04-18 12:26:59 PM |
| #9 JAF, the enemy of my enemy may not be my friend, but the friend of my enemy is definitely my enemy. For her affiliation with Code Pink and other associations, I'd say she qualifies. |
| Posted by: BH 2005-04-18 12:21:50 PM |
| #8 Why wasn't she in prison for her trip to Cuba? I request that we don't make any jokes about a victim of a terrorist action. She wasn't one of their victims; in her case it was "friendly fire" that did her in. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-04-18 12:21:47 PM |
| #7 At least Caterpillar's off the hook on this one :-) Nope. They built the equipment who allowed to extract the minerals used for the explosives. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-04-18 12:19:15 PM |
| #6 Hey guys, I'm no fan of some of these anti-war activists, and it is ironic that she was killed by a hate-inspired terrorist act. I request that we don't make any jokes about a victim of a terrorist action. Thanks. |
| Posted by: JackAssFestival 2005-04-18 12:14:56 PM |
| #5 At least Caterpillar's off the hook on this one :-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-04-18 11:49:06 AM |
| #4 If she set out to minister to the needs of ALL victims of the war-- victims of our accidental bombings and the fascists' deliberate bombings of civilians-- then she can legitimately be called a "humanitarian." If not, then she's a partisan "activist", working to enable the fascist cause. |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-18 11:37:41 AM |
| #3 Damn shame, kinda. |
| Posted by: BH 2005-04-18 11:24:32 AM |
| #2 once the bombs started falling, people would be hurt and she needed to help them get their lives back together Far more Iraqi civilians have been killed by the fascists' bombs planted at roadsides, or in cars, or in marketplaces and near schools and hospitals. Did our heroine also help the victims of those bombs get their lives back together? |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-18 11:24:10 AM |
| #1 "It's a terrible tragedy and a tragic irony that somebody who devoted her life to helping the victims of war would herself become a victim of war," Think that makes you immune to it, Medea? Too bad, so sad... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2005-04-18 11:19:13 AM |