The senseless death of the woman who fought George Bush

[NNN0LHI]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=630851

She looked like she should be surfing on a beach in California but Marla Ruzicka was drawn instead to Iraq and her self-appointed task of helping the civilian victims of George Bush's war. She was 28 years old and had been a peace activist since a young age. She went to Baghdad as the head of her own charity, determined to find out how many Iraqis had been killed or injured by US forces and get compensation for survivors.

At the weekend, the dedication that had taken Marla from her home in San Francisco to the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, led to her death.

On Saturday afternoon, as she and her driver were on the road leading from Baghdad to the city's airport, a suicide bomber attacked a passing convoy of security contractors. Marla's car was caught in the blast and engulfed in flames. A US Army medic who tried to help her said she was briefly conscious and was able to speak. "I'm alive," she had told him. She died along with an unnamed French national and an Iraqi.

The question everyone always asked about Marla was from where did she get all of her energy. She was constantly on the move: chattering, smiling, rushing to a hospital, dashing to a meeting, cajoling journalists, pestering diplomats, taking notes from a woman whose relatives had been killed, crossing time zones, entering people's lives.

more

[rockedthevoteinMA]

1. This is so sad.

x(

[PartyPooper]

2. This courageous young woman is a real American, a true caring human being.

Too bad, her pResident is the antithesis: a lying, coniving, and murderous coward and pos.

Marla belongs in heaven. * belongs in the Hague.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

3. What a tragic loss

Marla Ruzicka sounds like a wonderful, compassionate, beautiful, intelligent and sweet woman -the kind of person we need more of in this world.

Another tragic loss in a truly senseless conflict

Rest in peace Maria. Thank you for making a difference in the 28 years that you lived

[bpilgrim]

4. "on the road leading from Baghdad to the city's airport"

we can't even keep secure THE most important road in BAGDHAD noless and the M$MW in america believe everythiing is comming up roses 'over there' for the neoCONs :puke:


RIP Marla Ruzicka you've made the world a better place and will be missed :cry:

peace

[mmonk]

5. The good ones

leave us too early.

[pacalo]

6. Two photos of Marla...

[Zorra]

7. Wouldn't it be great if good people like Marla Ruzicka were running

our government instead of these horrible corrupt sociopathic warmongering lying killers like Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Negroponte, Delay, etc?

What a tragedy for this world to lose such a nice kind-hearted person.
:cry:

[rockedthevoteinMA]

8. They had a small video of her with interviews on NECN this morning

(If I knew how to post the link I would x( ) It's on the right with the title: "Aid worker Killed in Iraq-NECN" http://www.boston.com/

[Up2Late]

9. This is so tragic

Another of the "New" Generation of Activists gone.:cry: :grouphug:

[Judi Lynn]

10. Here's a site which has some tremendous images of this woman.

She looks like an unbelievable person, many steps above what passes for human in the White House.

I need to dream there will be many more like Marla some day, and so few chicken hawks. The difference in character and courage is vast.

http://www.civicworldwide.org/

On edit:

This is from the "About us" section of this website:

Marla Ruzicka is an advocate who began a door-to-door survey of civilian casualties in Iraq the day after Saddam's statue fell. She founded the non-profit organization, CIVIC, Campaign for Innocent Victims In Conflict, and formed survey teams to fan-out across the country and gather first-hand accounts of civilian casualties (including the dead, injured, homeless, displaced and abused.)
Marla took her first report to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) who sponsored legislation to provide U.S. aid to innocent Iraqis who were harmed in the military operations. This is just the beginning. CIVIC hopes to use this model to help victims of conflict worldwide by sharing their stories and letting them know others care, and that they have not been forgotten.

Marla has ten years of human rights organizing experience. Prior to launching the project, she was based in Kabul, Afghanistan. Marla worked with the San Francisco based human rights organization, Global Exchange, to pressure the US government to set up a fund for Afghan families harmed in Operation Enduring Freedom. She arrived in Kabul only a few days after the Taliban were removed from power. In Afghanistan, she conducted a survey on the military campaign effects on Afghan civilians and used the information to get assistance to the families harmed.

In July 2002, only a week after returning from Afghanistan, Marla moved to Washington, DC, where she has been working with USAID and the Senate Appropriations Committee to allocate money to rebuild homes for families that suffered as a result of U.S. military actions.
(snip/...)

http://www.civicworldwide.org/journal.jsp?key=10

[NJCher]

11. those ARE incredible pictures

What a beautiful, remarkable soul. These pictures made me cry. What in God's name is wrong when this horrible war is allowed to continue!? It is taking our best and brightest. What heartache I feel over this.

As I said to my class tonight: there are no WMD. It's admitted. So why the hell are we there?

After class, a student came up to me and told me about her best friend who has been in the service for 18 years. She told me that, living in one of NJ's urban ghettoes, she and her friends had little choice about what to do with their lives. Her friend could stay and do the street drug thing and get shot at or she could join the military. She did the latter.

Fast-forward 18 years and the friend has only a couple years to go before retirement. She can't get out of the service; they won't let her out. She is trapped. As my student said, "Some choice. Get shot at on the street or get shot at in Iraq."

The choices we give people in America.


Cher

[understandinglife]

12. I assure you, on May 2 2005, Ms Ruzicka will be remembered and honored.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us (a day to wonder how we can all bring to our fellow citizens and humanity the spirit of Marla Ruzicka)

[AVID]

13. more photos of Marla Ruzicka

Let this story and her cause make my voice and actions louder!

Rest in Peace Marla Ruzicka

[daleo]

18. She looks so small.

A great heart though - tragic. One more reason to despise Bush's war.

[frictionlessO]

32. Thank you for the tears....

no words, just missings...

[AuntiBush]

14. The Good Die Young, While Evil Maintains. Amazingly Sad!

This can't go forgotten. Can't.

[burrowowl]

15. Of course

The HL: The senseless Death of a Woman who fought George Bu$h, would not appear in U$ papers.

She is/was a rela hero, maybe even a saint.

[catzies]

46. She's a saint in my book. I woke up to this story on NPR yesterday

and was so sad I didn't want to get out of bed.

[Swamp Rat]

16. .

:cry:

[AnnitaR]

17. I cried buckets tonight over Marla's death.

I cannot understand why she had to die. There is so much evil in this world and she was a bright light fighting to help those who have suffered so much. Why her and not those who caused all the horror?

[ourbluenation]

20. There's an excellant article in the San Francisco Chronicle today...

She was a student at my husbands high school in Clear Lake... north bay area - he said she was always a rock star even back then. A real spitfire that wouldn't take no for an answer when it was something she believed in. He's taking our daughter out of school and going to the funeral - she was a real inspiration. RIP.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/18/MNGMFCALUC1.DTL

Here's a snippet from the Chron piece...

Among those calling the distraught family Sunday was U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

"I just feel terrible," Leahy told The Chronicle in a telephone interview from his home outside Washington, D.C. "I told her father that most people in a lifetime would never accomplish what she has. She was only 28."

Ruzicka, in an irrepressible one-woman campaign, got Leahy's office involved in winning congressional approval of civilian aid worth $10 million in Afghanistan and $20 million in Iraq, said Leahy aide Tim Rieser.

"Marla was really the inspiration behind these programs," Rieser said. "On the surface, she doesn't seem like someone whom people in Congress would pay attention to -- vivacious, scatterbrained, losing her cell phone every 15 minutes, living out of a suitcase, having no money.

"Then you listen to her, and you realize she's the only one doing it. She's out there getting the data. She was doing something that really needed to be done but was so dangerous many people wouldn't do it."

[AnnitaR]

22. Thanks for this link!

How incredibly sad is that as Rieser said "she's the only one doing it"!

She was the only one who cared enough. I feel ashamed.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Startlingly different. She was one of a kind.So glad I read this article.

It's amazing that in the little time she had, she ALSO was a member of Global Exchange, and even got thrown out of a speech by Jeff Skilling!

It leaves one speechless.

[leftchick]

31. I hope Marla's "data" is in the right hands...

and not in the hands of the US Military. :grr:

RIP Marla, you were really doing Jesus' work on Earth in contrast to the heathens in the WH..... :cry:

[NEOBuckeye]

19. Don't lose sight of what she was fighting for.

Indeed, her death is tragic. I feel sorrow for this young woman's loss.

But we can remember her and honor her best by keeping up the fight that she was fighting. We can and we must triumph over the dark forces that maim and destroy in our world.

[sattahipdeep]

37. Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling

04-18-2005

The really big Enron Corp. show starts next January
when the criminal trial of former high-ranking
executives Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Richard
Causey kicks off in federal court in Houston.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1113555911935

Protesting with Global Exchange at the Commonwealth Club
during 2001 speech by Enron CEO Jeff Skilling, Ruzicka gets ousted.




9/11 Complaint?

[mike_c]

21. not a senseless death, IMO....

Unfortunate, tragic-- yes. But not all sacrifice is senseless. Marla Ruzicka died in pursuit of a noble cause. She died a hero, working for a better world. We should mourn her death by celebrating her life.

[mhr]

23. Yes - Quite The Woman - Much Like Rachel Corey In Palestine

And so unlike all the senseless blather we here about the media darling Pat Tillman.

[Patiod]

42. Not senseless if it draws attention to what's going on

[fooj]

25. A courageous and heroic human being...

"Very few people are willing to die on their feet as opposed to living on their knees." May she find eternal peace.

[xxqqqzme]

26. she is only 5 months

younger than my son. Too, too young.

[Up2Late]

27. She was profiled on NPR's Morning Addition Monday

Here's the link to the Audio:

Roadside Bomb Kills U.S. Aid Worker in Iraq

by Ivan Watson

Morning Edition, April 18, 2005 · A roadside bomb in Iraq killed Marla Ruzicka, an American aid worker, over the weekend. The 28-year-old founder of the Campaign for Innocent Victims of Conflict helped get millions in U.S. aid directed to help families of civilians accidentally killed and injured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

<>

[Pert_UK]

28. This is FULL PAGE FRONT PAGE today......

in a big-selling national daily newspaper in the UK.

I wish you guys were able to see it - it's a terrible story, but at least it shows that some of the press is on our side.

[cornermouse]

29. She did the unforgiveable.

According to what I heard, she talked the reporters into leaving their little hiding holes to go out and get real stories about the war that ended up on the front pages.

Its been a long time since I saw anything about Iraq, Afghanistan, war, or fighting on the front page of my local paper.

[Henny Penny]

30. when will this madness end?

:kick:

[Voltaire99]

33. Peace be upon her name

What a sterling life. Does it get better than the one Marla led?

Here, we realize, is an American hero. She cleaned up after American disgrace.

All the sad belligerent fools who took us into this war--Bush and Rumsfeld, and, yes, Kerry and Hillary--are as nothing next to a woman like this.

Rest in peace.

[sattahipdeep]

34. Security contractors....Blackwater?

"Their deaths will not go unpunished," said L. Paul Bremer, the
top U.S. civilian in Iraq. :think:

http://www.newsobserver.com/nation_world/blackwater/series/v-printer/story/1488949p-7640887c.html


Counting civilian victims of the war in Iraq, Marla Ruzicka is on the
ground for Campaign for Innocent Victims of Conflict. Photo, 2003, special to the Chronicle



"She mooned the president," her mother said. :patriot:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/18/MNGMFCALUC1.DTL

[mistertrickster]

36. Let this be a thread to honor her death, for she was the best and the

bravest among us. Unbelievable courage and kindness.

*****

But eventually I'd like to hear what really happened on the airport road. I've heard that she was travelling with a military convoy, that she was near a convoy, that the convoy was Democratic Initiative people, that it was security contractors.

Please don't hijack this into a conspiracy thread, I am just saying the official story hasn't seem to come out yet.

I'd like to see the definitive reportage--hopefully, TIME will go in-depth on it soon.

[sattahipdeep]

39. Antiwar Activist Murdered

http://www.legendgames.net/showstory.asp?page=blognews/stories/WN0000094.txt

ABC News Online is covering Ms. Ruzicka's killing

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=679085

A Washington Post article on Ms. Ruzicka's activism

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24737-2004Aug22.html

The Civic Worldwide website

http://www.civicworldwide.org/

Robert Hayes blogs

http://www.bobhayes.net

[mistertrickster]

45. Yup . . . it seems to be just part of the senseless random violence that

is Iraq so far.

Not like the Italian journalist who was bizarrely gunned down by our troops after being freed by terrorist kidnappers.

*******

BTW, some of these blog links are a little too right-wing for my tastes, heh.

[CBHagman]

35. She did so much in such a short time.

It's very humbling to read of a young person who was willing to risk everything for her ideals.

Good-bye, Marla. Say a prayer for those still on Earth.

[tyedyeto]

38. The NewsHour had a very moving segment about her last night...

just sat there stunned thinking about what a waste the entire war is......not only for her family but all the other families (civilian and military) who have lost loved ones to *'s unjust war.

She was a shining star in the fight for the common people.

[malmapus]

40. Her parents should be very proud

They did a fine job in raising a remarkable young woman. The fact that she did so much at her age and held strongly to her beliefs. I salute her.

I hope that she does inspire others to follow in her footsteps and take up the banner.

[Dinger]

41. There's More Where That Comes From

I STILL think bu$h is involved in the Margie Schoedinger rape and murder. Tinfoil or not. There are still witnesses to this crime that are alive.


:tinfoilhat:

[no_to_war_economy]

43. true American hero

[0007]

44. RIP

[BrklynLiberal]

47. She was cut of the same cloth as Rachel Corrie.... breathtaking heroines.

(December 31, 1976 – April 16, 2005)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marla_Ruzicka


1979-2003
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

[redacted]

48. Report from local newspaper

SLAIN LAKEPORT ACTIVIST LONG A CHAMPION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Family, admirers worldwide recall Ruzicka's commitment, passion for her work

Tuesday, April 19, 2005
By MIKE GENIELLA
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

LAKEPORT - Even as a child, human rights activist Marla Ruzicka felt strongly about righting wrongs.

At the time, she was growing up in Lakeport, a rural, largely conservative community of fewer than 5,000 where children were expected to mind their manners. That didn't faze Ruzicka, who died Saturday at age 28 in a suicide bombing in Iraq.

"When we were kids, Marla believed if things needed to be changed, you had to stand up and get vocal," said twin brother Mark Ruzicka.

Marla Ruzicka did just that.

MORE

http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050419/NEWS/504190302/1033/NEWS01

(Also, the local Clear Channel station, KFTY TV 50, devoted 10 minutes to this as their lead story last night, but as of this writing there doesn't seem to be anything on their website at http://www.kfty.com.)

[struggle4progress]

49. Remembering a Friend

<snip> On Saturday April 16, our colleague and friend, Marla Ruzicka of Lakeport, Calif., was killed on the streets of Baghdad. We still don't know the exact details of her death, which makes it all that much harder to deal with the utter shock of losing this bright, shining light whose work focused on trying to bring some compassion into the middle of a war zone.

Marla was working for a humanitarian organization she founded called CIVIC (Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict), which documents cases of innocent civilians hurt by war. Marla and numerous other volunteers would go door-to-door interviewing families who had lost loved ones or had their property destroyed by the fighting. She would then take this information back to Washington and lobby for reparations for these families. <snip>

Marla worked with AIDS victims in Zimbabwe, refugees in Palestine, and campesinos in Nicaragua. Following the US invasion of Afghanistan, Marla traveled to Afghanistan with a Global Exchange delegation and she was so moved by the plight of the civilian victims that she dedicated the rest of her too-short life to helping innocent victims of war. She was on a similar mission in Iraq when she met with her untimely death.

Marla was once asked by a San Francisco Chronicle reporter if she would ever consider doing work that was safer. Marla answered: "To have a job where you can make things better for people? That's a blessing. Why would I do anything else?" <snip>

http://www.alternet.org/story/21778