April 17, 2005
Marla Ruzicka
Marla Ruzicka, a longtime peace activist and the founder of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), was killed in a car bombing on April 16. She was 28.
Born and raised in Lakeport, Calif., Ruzicka became interested in humanitarian issues in high school. Although she technically resided in New York City, Ruzicka rarely spent much time in the United States. Instead, she traveled around the world and tried to alleviate the suffering she encountered.
While studying for her bachelor's degree in political science and social work at Long Island University, Ruzicka volunteered with Global Exchange in the Middle East, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Zimbabwe and Nicaragua. As a young adult, she worked on AIDS issues in Africa, protested the U.S. embargo in Cuba and visited Afghanistan to survey the needs of refugees affected by America's "war on terror."
In 2003, Ruzicka founded CIVIC, a non-profit organization dedicated to identifying and addressing the needs of civilian war casualties. The day after the statue of Saddam Hussein toppled in Baghdad, she set up a CIVIC office in the capital city and launched a door-to-door survey of Iraqi civilian casualties.
Ruzicka and more than 150 volunteers viewed scenes of destruction and carnage as they documented the war's collateral damage. Their work, which was publicized in dozens of newspaper and magazine articles and in the 2003 book "Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq" by Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson, inspired Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to create a special fund in the foreign aid bill to help innocent Iraqis who were harmed in the military operations.
Ruzicka was traveling near Baghdad International Airport on Saturday to visit an injured Iraqi child when a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of security contractors that was passing near her vehicle. An Army officer who arrived on the scene shortly after the bomber struck said Ruzicka was still alive and conscious with burns over 90 percent of her body when the car became engulfed in flames. Ruzicka, her Iraqi driver Faiz Ali Salim, and a guard on the convoy died in the blast. Five other people were wounded.
Posted on April 17, 2005 11:53 PMI feel great sympathy for the family of Marla and for the Iraqi people. She was one of the Americans actually doing some good in Iraq. And EVERY life wasted in this stupid war, on both sides, should be mourned.
Posted by stu on April 19, 2005 12:59 AMmay marla be rewarded for her great works towards peace in worlds beyond this weak and unjust one. many thanks for your trials and sacrifices, marla. you were a hero.
Posted by m!ke on April 19, 2005 1:07 AMIf there is a HEAVEN Marla is there.....R.I.P.
martyr marla
Marla thank you for loving the Iraqi people.
Some words from Gandhi to help us mourn Marla's death...
"When I despair, I remember all through history TRUTH and LOVE always win. There have been tyrants and murderers who seem invinicible but in the end they always fall. Remember God's Way." Marla, you are a winner. Peace to you and your loved ones.
When The New York Times, “Nightline,” and CNN nominate a young blonde for sainthood ahead of the Pope, it’s time for a reality check.
Especially when that blonde, Marla Ruzicka’s sole purpose is to legitimize our enemies, cause problems for U.S. troops already in harms way, and morally equivocate dead terrorists with victims of 9/11.
Jane Fonda lite—but unfortunately without having been spat upon by right-thinking veterans.
The recent death of Ruzicka, an American “activist” in Iraq, elicited an orgy of gush—everywhere from Time Magazine to The Guardian of London to Al-Jazeera.
A 28-year-old San Franciscan, Ruzicka was in Iraq “to help the Iraqi people,” proclaim the multi-orgasmic mainstream media memorials to her. Even the Wall Street Journal’s normally excellent Robert Pollock mourned “Ambassador Marla” for being a less gnarly America-hater than the others.
Et tu, Robert?
With her cascading blonde hair and youthful looks, Ruzicka didn’t look like your average greasy-haired, pot-smoking, hackey-sack-playing, crunchy radical. And the media swooned over her, the newly-anointed Vanity Fair pin-up in Birkenstocks.
But looks are deceiving. . . .
She formed the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), the goal of which was anything but CIVIC during the War on Terror or ever. Ruzicka’s aim was to force the U.S. government to get an “accurate” count of “innocent civilian” deaths by U.S. troops and blackmail America into paying monetary settlements for each death.
But many of those dead included assorted terrorists, jihadists, and other collaborators and uprisers against Americans. Ruzicka had the gall to insist that these Afghani and Iraqi dead, terrorists or not, get recognition and sympathy equal to victims of the 9/11 attacks.
More outrageous, Ruzicka got taxpayer money to fund her aiding-and-abetting pursuits. Where was Marla Ruzicka on 9/11? Hint: Not asking Al-Qaeda for money to count and compensate U.S. victims of terror.
Ruzicka began as a professional protester for left-wing groups in her native San Francisco. First, she was active with the anti-capitalist, anti-business Rainforest Action Network activist. Then, she was an AIDS activist, interrupting an AIDS-related speech by Colin Powell. As an anti-Bush protester, she wore a sarong with a protest-statement visible after she ripped it off her body in front of the then-Texas Governor.
Eventually, Ruzicka joined far-left Human Rights Watch and Global Exchange, falling down another rung in bad fashion taste and dumping the sarong for a hijab, as she traveled first to Afghanistan and then to Iraq. She didn’t wear the hijab out of any new-found sense of Pan-Arabia modesty, but rather to be down with her new Islamist homies.
Ruzicka went to Iraq as an activist for Code Pink, which is more aptly titled “Code Pinko” by FrontPageMag.com writer Jean Pearce. Code Pink is an assortment of neo-Commie America-haters who love Fidel Castro (and Cuba under him) and Marxist Sandinista thugs (thankfully, long ago deposed) and have ties to environmental terrorist groups (Animal Liberation Front and Environmental Liberation Front).
That’s bad enough.
But in Iraq, where Ruzicka traveled with the group, Code Pink functioned as a Pro-Saddam—and now pro-Insurgent—group of Americans. Code Pink was in Iraq in October 2002, months before U.S. troops went in to the country, the following March. The darlings of Al-Jazeera (and our own media, unfortunately) Code Pinkos acted as human shields and anti-American protesters in the Iraqi streets, much to Saddam Hussein’s delight.
But it gets worse.
Remember the Americans burnt to a crisp and hung from a bridge in the Fallujah uprising? Code Pink donated over $650,000 to those Fallujah terrorists (Code Pinkos call them “refugees.”)
Back on U.S. soil, Code Pink harasses badly wounded American soldiers, protesting them outside the Walter Reed medical facility in Washington, DC. Code Pinkos disrupted last week’s Congressional confirmation hearings on UN Ambassador nominee John Bolton, shouting and unfurling banners against him. They are also shadowing military recruiters to foil recruiting efforts. The upside: there won’t be enough soldiers to protect Code Pinkos’ rights and freedoms.
This is Marla Ruzicka’s beloved Code Pink. It’s time to stop worshipping at the alter of this false heroine.
There are plenty of young American men and women Ruzicka’s age and younger who’ve been brutalized or killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But none of them got the wall-to-wall fawning coverage that Ruzicka got—unless they were anally raped or formerly played pro football.
That should tell you something about the media’s outlook on whose life is more worthy and whose death is more important: American soldiers fighting for freedom—bad; vociferous activist bimbette hampering those American soldiers and helping their terrorist killers—very, very good.
While it’s a sad day when any American gets killed by Islamic terrorists, it’s measurably less sad when that American aided and abetted them—and belittled our troops.
For Marla Ruzicka, a/k/a Treasonatrix Barbie, some might call it, poetic justice.
Posted by mike on April 25, 2005 12:55 AMKilled by the people she was protecting, that is too funny. She got what she deserved!
Posted by iammai on April 25, 2005 2:39 AMAnother useful idiot with a good heart died.
She deserves nomination for Darwin Award.
Reading The WSJ editorial, I found nothing which resembled Mike's analysis. That leads me to wonder whether his other "facts" are as dubious.
A foreign policy of nation-building and defensive war must have as a core component for success the "good citizenship" of accountability. It isn't a traitorous gesture to say this, rather it is similar to expressing concerns about un-armored humvees being foisted on our combat troops. Each circumstance can get our people killed and both are entirely avoidable.
Marla went places and ultimately found the right venue for her sacrifice. That she wasn't a fan of business interests or perhaps the current administration doesn't address the fact that if we apologize to those who are caught in the crossfire of our actions, we may well temper the rage of a later enemy. Remember that the code of revenge is very strong in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So, folks like Mike may see more clearly if they look past their initial personal sentiments and consider more responsibly the gaps in our counter-insurgency plans. And as for Marla getting what she deserved, she was burned over 90% of her body and lived long enough to endure that pain. Anyone who can honestly say they feel that fate is appropriate for a human being speaks from a place I can't understand. The odds are that the sight, smell, and sound of such a tragedy would change the way they speak about it forever.
Posted by jim on May 9, 2005 9:21 PMI find it so sad that people would say that someone got what they deserved when referring to death. That is so unfair. I don't know a lot about this woman. I'm sure I wouldn't have agreed with her on most issues. However, I admire anyone that feels so deeply about something that they live their lives to make it happen. WE should all do more to promote peace
Posted by Monica PEndleton on September 30, 2005 9:48 AMI think Marla dedicated her life to helping people's lives in the worst hell holes on earth, those so called patriots who critise her should sign up and fight in iraq rather than sit at home watching TV and judging those who put their lifes at risk for what they believe.
Posted by Sean on October 22, 2005 8:46 AMThanks for writing about Marla Ruzicka. Today is the anniversary of her tragic death. I remember her in the Atlantic Review: Marla Ruzicka: Civilian Victims of War. She did advance U.S. interests:Marla: Reconciliation. Thanks.
Posted by Jorg on April 16, 2006 2:42 PMMarla Ruzicka is this year’s recipient of the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award. The award was presented posthumously at a ceremony in Ayr Town Hall last night (25th May 2006) which marked the opening of this year’s Burns an’ a’ that Festival.
Posted by murdo on May 29, 2006 8:02 AM