Marla Ruzicka -- dead in Iraq
Wretchard at
The Belmont Club makes a very interesting point about the death of Marla Ruzicka:
Anyone who wants to remember Marla Ruzicka, the Bay Area activist who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, should first all remember how she died. Time gives this account of her death.
Ruzicka, 28, became a victim of the Iraqi conflict on Saturday, when a car bomb detonated beside her car on the perilous road from central Baghdad to the city's airport. Her longtime Iraqi aide and driver Faiz Ali Salim, 43, was also killed.
She didn't die while accompanying a military convoy. She wasn't killed at a US checkpoint or by American fire. She died on a road frequented by civilians killed by what was almost certainly a command detonated bomb; which didn't go off by itself but was set off by someone waiting patiently, at a distance, with his converted cellphone or garage door opener, until a likely victim came along. For Time to say that Marla Ruzicka was the 'victim' of an abstract Iraqi conflict is as misleading as to maintain that Iraqis who may have wrongfully died in US custody are 'victims' of 'international conflict'. To remember Marla Ruzicka it is important to remember that first and foremost she was murdered, murdered by insurgents.
Very good point -- this was not a stray bullet or RPG, this was intentional with the victim in sight. Maybe they waited until they saw a pretty woman. The Islamofascist treatment of women is not known for kindness...
One of Wretchard's commenters was
Dr. Sanity whom I wrote about
here a few days ago. Here is her comment on this:
Somehow I suspect her death will be twisted into a Rachel Corrie-type moment; used as further evidence of the evil BushChimpHitler policies. Her death will be considered martyrdom, and she will be elevated to saint soon enough. That she was murdered by a group of people who could care less about the value of human life will not matter, since the people who see her as a "symbol" to bash the US with don't either.
Posted by DaveH at April 18, 2005 6:40 PM