Baghdad car bomb kills US humanitarian worker

[maddezmom]

25 minutes ago Mideast - AFP



BAGHDAD (AFP) - Three people, including a US humanitarian worker, were killed by a suicide car bomber on the perilous road to Baghdad airport, the US embassy in Iraq said.


Marla Ruzicka, 27, who headed the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), a non-governmental organisation that lobbied to get financial compensation for civilian casualties of war, was driving toward the airport when her vehicle was targeted by a suicide car bomb, the US embassy said.


"There were four deaths we know of, including a suicide bomber. One of the dead was a private US citizen Marla Ruzicka. Her family has been notified," said spokesman Adam Hobson.


Hobson added that five others were wounded in the attack.

~snip~
more: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050417/wl_mideast_afp/iraqustoll_050417154016

[qanda]

1. Ah....

http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/

[maddezmom]

2. interesting link from 2003

American Woman Travels Door to Door to Count Iraqi Casualties

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/053003I.shtml

[Rene]

18. I'd say she was targetted

In my opinion.....I think she....like the Italian journalist were targetted to be eliminated.
Where is Chalabi and his 700 man army that was flown into Kuwait and then trucked to Baghdad to fill that town square and take down Hussein's statue.
What are those 700 men doing for a living in Iraq now. I think it's important for the US to find them all.....and to make Chalabi incommunicado in the area...he's nothing but a troublemaker, in my view.

[dArKeR]

3. I've never heard a Media Whore question this. I guess that's all the proof

that the world needs to show that they are exactly that, Slut Media Whores!

This is just ONE road in Iraq. ONE road in the heart of Iraq, Baghdad, the capital city. ONE road in which all comes and goes. ONE road which Bush hasn't been able to secure in 2 years. Not much talk about ONE road which I'd guess has had thousands of bombing and attacks!

[dArKeR]

4. This morning met the uncle of US military personel, two tours in Iraq.

I asked the uncle why the garage sale wasn't open yesterday but his sign said it would. He apologized and told me it was a special day. Unexpectedly the whole family came over, including the guest of honor. His nephew who had just got back from two tours of duty in Iraq. He is in the Air Force.

As we got to talking he said the nephew believes we should get out of Iraq. The people don't want us there. The military personel has been in the Air Force for 15 years. They know if they publicly speak out the truth they will be destroying their careers. It one of those things everyone knows but nobody acknowledges.

[blogbear]

5. Who could want the US government there after what Iraqi's have..

been put through by it?..Are people supposed to 'want' to be raped, humiliated, tortured, cheated, lied to, led on, shunned, laughed at, betrayed, ripped-off, led around like sheep, etc? I can understand military personnel being afraid to speak the truth, but not after everyone knows it..We still have way too much hegemony here..Don't forget that even our illustrious General Washington 'used' slavery..

[NNN0LHI]

6. Baghdad car bomb kills aid worker

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5693619&cKey=1113756631000

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American humanitarian worker was among three people killed in a suicide carbomb attack on a convoy travelling on Baghdad's airport road, the U.S. embassy said on Sunday.

Marla Ruzicka, 27, the founder of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, was driving behind a private security convoy when the car bomb exploded on Saturday, security officials said.

The identities of the others killed were not immediately known. Five people were wounded in the explosio nand taken to a U.S. military hospital inside Baghdad's Green Zone, a U.S. embassy spokesman said.

Ruzicka, who grew up in California, had worked frequently in Iraq and Afghanistan trying to uncover detailson the number of civilian casualties in the wars and secure compensation for the families of victims.

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

U.S. Activist Mends Lives Torn by War

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 23, 2004; Page A13

Two years ago, a young activist named Marla Ruzicka sat in a Senate hearing room listening to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld testify about the war in Afghanistan. She had come to Washington to try to urge greater U.S. attention to civilian casualties in that war, and Rumsfeld barely touched on the topic.

Ruzicka, then 25, had already forged a reputation in leftist circles. She once had disrupted a speech on AIDS by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Another time, she was hauled off by police after she ripped off a sarong -- which inside had a protest statement -- during a speech by then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

Now, she sat wondering: "Should I let him talk or stand up and start screaming at him?"

She kept quiet. When the hearing ended, she rushed up to his table and grabbed his hand and thanked him for testifying. And then she kept talking -- and held his attention -- as he walked out of the Hart Senate Office Building and across the street to his motorcade.

more

[NNN0LHI]

7. Baghdad car bomb kills aid worker

This thread has been combined with another thread.

Click here to read this message in its new location.

[tainted_chimp]

8. This is so sad

Thank you Marla for all that you were able to do.
:cry:

[Roland99]

9. An American activist who dared to help Iraqi victims

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0418/p07s01-woiq.html

After the Iraq war, she moved her push for an accurate count of civilian casualties to Baghdad. At a time when the International Committee of the Red Cross and United Nations were leaving Iraq, Marla started the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict. Through that, she helped Iraqi families navigate the process of claiming compensation from the US military for injuries and deaths.

When she died Marla was traveling to visit some of the many Iraqi families she was working to help. Lately, she had been attempting to aid the relatives of a toddler whose parents were killed after the mini-bus they were traveling in was hit by what was believed to be an American rocket. The baby was thrown out of a window to save her life.

It's still unclear exactly how Marla and her driver, Faiz, were killed. But early reports indicate that they were traveling on the dangerous route between Baghdad and the airport when a suicide car bomber tried to attack a military convoy. Faiz was an Iraqi Airways pilot, who at one time worked as an interpreter for Monitor correspondents in Iraq.


<...>


She would point out, this happens to Iraqis every day and no one notices or even cares. There are no newspaper articles or investigations into what happens to them. For most of them, there was only Marla.

There was only Marla because the Propagandist wanted it that way!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Hissyspit]

10. Self-Deleted

[Mr.Soul]

11. RIP

Sad news.

[Hissyspit]

12. Welcome to DU. Yes, really sad. n/t

[Mr.Soul]

15. Sickness

You know what though?

I just took a cruise thru the right leaning blogs and they are brutal.

They seem to cheer the death of this poor girl.

They applaud saying that she had an agenda against our Govt. and got what she deserved.

Is the "red/blue" state bullshit that important that they have to think in such broad strokes?

Hatred for a care worker?

Applause for a death that did not meet their politics?

Sick fucking bastards, the whole lot of them.

Lucianne and etc., I feel sorry for your souls, may god have mercy on your hatred.

[w4rma]

13. Republicans hate her and folks like her. They follow evil people.

Rest in peace. Thank you for what you were able to do before "they" killed you.

[Hissyspit]

14. MSNBC Version of Story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7537845/

American activist dies in Iraq blast
Ruzicka founded group to aid civilian victims

The Associated Press
Updated: 8:42 p.m. ET April 17, 2005


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.

MORE

[UpInArms]

16. Bush wears the blood of every life lost and ruined

in his illegal war that he does not regret and says he would wage again.

I am so very sorry for all of the people that are suffering today because of the policies of this insane mal-administration.

:cry:

[NNN0LHI]

17. Remember when aid workers in Iraq were never harmed?

It was back before the US invaded and occupied Iraq.

Don

[icymist]

19. Could it be that she knew too much from going door to door?

From http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/053003I.shtml (thanks maddazmom)
"Marla Ruzicka is somebody out there saying, 'Wait, everybody. Here's what's really happening. You better know about this,' " said Leahy. "We have whistle-blowers in industry. Maybe sometimes we need whistle-blowers in foreign policy."

Anybody remember that Italian reporter that claims the US forces tried to kill her because she knew too much? It's strange how people with 'too much' information from Iraq become targets. :tinfoilhat:

[Roland99]

20. Wasn't Sgrena doing stories on civilians casualties, too?

[Wilms]

21. This damned war. n/t

[rodeodance]

22. An American Aid Worker Is Killed in Her Line of Duty

The utter senselessness of it all!!



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/18/international/middleeast/18american.html?

An American Aid Worker Is Killed in Her Line of Duty

By ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: April 18, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 17 - For more than two years, Marla Ruzicka worked to get help for innocent civilians caught in cross-fires here. A 28-year-old Californian with blond hair and an electric smile, she ran a one-woman aid group.

On Saturday afternoon, Ms. Ruzicka became a casualty herself. A suicide bomber attacked a convoy of security contractors that was passing near her car on the airport road in Baghdad, killing her and her Iraqi driver, United States Embassy officials in Baghdad said.

Ms. Ruzicka had worked in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. She took great risks, often traveling to talk to Iraqis without the guards and armored cars that reporters here tend to rely on. She also had an extraordinary gift for promoting her cause, whether in Iraq or Washington.......


.....An American Army officer who arrived on the scene shortly after the bomber struck said that Ms. Ruzicka's car was engulfed in flames, and that she was still alive and conscious, with burns over 90 percent of her body.

[saigon68]

23. When you FUCK with the BULL

Sometimes you get the HORNS.

[hlthe2b]

24. Well, she certainly earned the place in Heaven the Bushies will never

see. RIP, Ms. Ruzicka. YOU are an American Heroine.

[flordehinojos]

25. all of it is so senseless to you, to me and to so many others but,

don't for one minute think any of it is senseless to the bushes...they want the iraqi oil and they are getting it. they want to be the supreme power in the world and they are getting it... they are the lex luthor and jokers and every evil character that superman and batman and robin and all the rest went after, except that we don't have a batman, a superman, or a robin to go after the bushes.

And as long as the press covers up the truth, gives the bushes a pass, the country has no organized resistance... we are doomed, doomed, doomed!

[Jack Rabbit]

26. SFChronicle: Activist for war victims killed in car bomb attack

From the San Francisco Chronicle
Dated Monday April 18

Noted activist for war victims killed in car bomb attack
Californian Marla Ruzicka championed humanitarian aid in Iraq
By Charles Burress, Tanya Schevitz, Chronicle Staff Writers

A car bomb attack near Baghdad has killed a well-known activist from Northern California who entered war zones to record civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and secure aid for those caught in the cross fire.

Marla Ruzicka, 28, of Lakeport (Lake County), founder of CIVIC -- Campaign for Innocent Victims of Conflict -- died with her driver on the Baghdad Airport road Saturday when a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of security contractors that was passing next to her vehicle, according to her family and news reports quoting U.S. Embassy officials in Iraq.

The target of the attack apparently was not Ruzicka's vehicle, said her mother, Nancy Ruzicka, who received the account from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

She was killed while traveling "to visit an Iraqi child injured by a bomb, part of her daily work of identifying and supporting innocent victims of this war," said CIVIC representative April Pedersen in a statement on the group's Web site.

Read more.

[Cooley Hurd]

27. Rest in peace, Marla...

:cry:

What a brave spirit!

[trotsky]

28. A true noble soul lost.

I shudder to think how the freeptards are celebrating the death of this woman who was more human than all of them put together.

[redqueen]

30. I shudder to think that those monsters call themselves Christians. n/t

[MaineDem]

33. "Car Bomb Kills American Peace Freak in Iraq"

That's the subject line of the tread on this woman's death at the right-wing As Maine Goes website. I hate to post a link to their hatred but, in case anyone wants to read it, here it is.

http://www.asmainegoes.com/ubb-scripts/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=030799

At least the author is getting raked for his own brand of hatred.

[Pachamama]

29. Marla was a PeaceMaker...a truly good soul...

She was an angel...she is now among them...O8)

I met Marla once at a Global Exchange event...she was a caring individual who wanted to make a difference....she had courage and conviction and she walked the talk...

She put her time and energy and safety on the line to make a difference...she died doing that...

One further comment: Seems like a lot of innoncent people are dieing on that road to the Baghdad airport....Ofcourse, the US Military claims it was a roadside bomb that was from insurgents...we'll never truly know, will we? :eyes:

Rest in Peace Sister Marla... :hug:

[Up2Late]

31. Roadside Bomb Kills U.S. Aid Worker (CIVIC) in Iraq

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 (CIVIC) 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.

To here the NPR Story, click the link above, then click the button.

Here's the CNN .com story

Humanitarian group founder killed in Iraq

Monday, April 18, 2005 Posted: 9:50 AM EDT (1350 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An American founder of a humanitarian group for Iraqi civilian war casualties has been killed in a car bomb blast, a Western official said.

Marla Ruzicka, founder of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, was traveling Saturday near Baghdad International Airport when a car bomb exploded, killing her and her driver, the official said Sunday.

The U.S. Embassy is investigating and hasn't been able to determine if the attack was a suicide mission or a bomb that was remotely detonated, the official said. It's also unknown whether Ruzicka's vehicle was associated with a three-car convoy of a U.S. nongovernmental organization, National Democratic Institute, that was traveling along the same road, the official added. That convoy may have been the target of the attack. A Czech employee of a security firm hired to drive the convoy also was killed, said Les Campbell, regional director of the National Democratic Institute.

Ruzicka, 28, founded Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict in 2003, according to the group's Web site. Its mission is 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."

(more at CNN link above)

[daleo]

32. Bush is a lucky guy

A potential threat to his invasion propaganda is killed (apparently) by the Iraqi resistance on the road to the airport. At least this time it wasn't U.S. troops, as far as we know.

[otohara]

34. RIP Marla - Remarkable Woman

As Salon.com states today - She represented the best of America - and as always, the good die young.