Iraq Car Bomb Kills American Activist

Associated Press ^ | 4/17/05 | Associated Press

[jimbo123]

SAN FRANCISCO - A woman who founded a humanitarian group to aid civilian casualties in Iraq has died in a car bombing in Baghdad, officials said Sunday.

Marla Ruzicka, founder of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, died Saturday in the blast, which also killed an Iraqi and another foreigner, officials said. She had been in Iraq conducting door-to-door surveys trying to determine the number of civilian casualties in the country.

Ruzicka, 28, founded CIVIC in 2003 to "mitigate the impact of the conflict and its aftermath on the people of Iraq by ensuring that timely and effective life-saving assistance is provided to those in need," according to the group's Web site.

Ruzicka's parents said Sunday they were notified of her death just hours after the explosion. U.S. Embassy officials publicly released Ruzicka's name Sunday.

"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, of Lakeport.

She said her daughter had left her a telephone message the night before her death that said, "Mom and dad, I love you. I'm OK."

"She cared about people and gave people her love and help," Nancy Ruzicka said. "I'll remember the love she spread around the world and the good ambassador that she was for her country."

Ruzicka got her start working for non-governmental organizations 10 years ago at the San Francisco-based human rights group Global Exchange.

"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," said Medea Benjamin, the group's director.

[AQGeiger]

According to Medea Benjamin, the people setting up car bombs are only doing so because they are resisting oppression by the Americans. It's still our fault in her eyes. But she's a few ice cubes short of a tray.

[DJ Taylor]

"We've been very worried about her but we know better than to tell our children not to do anything."

This statement by her parents says it all.

[jimbo123]

Google Search: Marla Ruzicka

[Southack]

Tuesday, December 28th, 2004
U.S. Delegation Goes to Middle East With $600,000 in Aid For Fallujah Refugees

---

A delegation of military family members whose sons died while fighting in the Iraq war have traveled to Jordan to deliver $600,000 worth of humanitarian supplies for refugees from the U.S. attack on Falluja. [includes rush transcript]
The November attack, which virtually leveled the city and left some 2,000 Iraqis and 71 U.S. soldiers dead, also created thousands of refugees, who are living without adequate food, water, electricity and healthcare. Most of these refugees are children.
In an Internet appeal, the military family members, in collaboration with U.S. peace groups, physicians' organizations, and September 11 families, quickly raised $100,000 in donations. And humanitarian groups such as the Middle East Children"s Alliance and Operation USA contributed $500,000 worth of medical supplies.

We go now to Jordan to hear from Medea Benjamin, founder of Code Pink

[Boazo]

"The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love." Ernesto Che Guevara

This is one of Marla's favorite quotes

[litany_of_lies]

Medea Benjamin is one of the two women who interrupted a prewar Congressional hearing by screaming "inspections, not war," got arrested and hauled off, and made the front page of I believe the NYT and LAT the next day.

I wonder if the deceased was the other one. I'm thinking she was, but will research.

[T'wit]

Thank you, that is the only appropriate response to this tragedy. May her soul find comfort.

[REDWOOD99]

How long until the libs start screaming "assassination" because she was about to "expose the true number of civilian casualties that the illegal war on the innocents of Iraq has wrought?" I'm sure the number would be "nearing 1 million" and the Bush admin. couldn't risk her exposing the "truth".

[cripplecreek]

Sadly enough i know the name Medea Benjamin. In a civilized society her name shouldn't become so well known.

[armymarinemom]

I guess I will not say anthing at all.

[Poser]

"She was trying to give comfort to others."

No. She wasn't.

She was killed trying to prove her country was evil and that liberating millions of people from tyranny was wrong.

She was killed trying to discredit the US military and the US government.

She was killed trying to make the enemy appear to be good while making her country look bad.

It's too bad that she was killed, but she had no business being there and her activities were traitorous.

[AQGeiger]

Che must have really, really loved all those people for whose deaths he was responsible.

[jimbo123]

She wasn't a humanitarian. She was a useful idiot. It was poetic justice, not a tragedy.

[swilhelm73]

"The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love." Ernesto Che Guevara

From the Butcher of Latin America no less. One wonders what kind of psychopath invisions love as executing people for the crime of speaking their mind...

[ThreePuttinDude]

Thanks for finding that so fast. My fingers
were going double time to find something like that.



TPD

[SteveMcKing]

NICE SCARF...


It's not just "IRONY", as many here are saying. I have my suspicion about why an active dissident would be in such proximity to a car bomb.

[Southack]

"Sadly enough i know the name Medea Benjamin. In a civilized society her name shouldn't become so well known."

Medea Benjamin is a pro-Cuban Revolutionary.

That she and her militant Communist ilk are in Iraq can mean no good.

[litany_of_lies]

It was a different person, a Diane Wilson, who disrupted the Congressional hearing along with Medea Benjamin.

I won't link because I found the info at a traitorous far-left site.