Oh, shit. That is awful. Par for the course for the IDF, though.

I have a good friend who lives in Olympia and is a pro-Palestinian activist. I wonder if he knows her?

Electronic Intafada has eyewitness reports and photos that clearly demonstrate that the death of ISM activist Rachel Corrie was no "accident."
The photos show that the IDF bulldozer operator had a clear line of sight of Corrie, who was standing up, wearing a bright coloured jacket and had a loudhailer to further signal her presence.

Further, Corrie was attempting to stop an illegal act; the indescriminate demolition by the IDF of Palestinian homes having been declared illegal by the israeli courts themselves.

This one kills me. I love the people of Israel, but the IDF is just killing too many innocents. The only difference between this murder and the murders that took place yesterday is that she was American, not Palestinian.

Olympia is a small, incestuous college town. He knew her.

And the eyewitness accounts also reveal that the bulldozer backed up and ran over her again!

Let's see, just in the last week or so, (completly ignoring the now almost routine daily tallies of murdered Palestinian civilians that the IDF regularly runs down, guns down, beats up or denies access to medical care)we have the media-featured items of the IDF burying a nine-month pregnant woman in the rubble of her own home as they illegally destroyed the one next to it, another "accidental" shooting earlier this week of two Israeli security guards/settlers, and now today, the death of an ISM international peace volunteer and US citizen, by bulldozer (a US-made Caterpillar, no doubt).

Its so obvious and yet far too understated to say that the IDF is out of control...out of control.

There's a domestic parallel, of course. Remember the specialized (and highly militarized) anti-drug/anti-gang teams that US metropolitian police forces hyped, trained and sent into so many minority neighborhoods of urban areas? In those instances, as well, we saw (and other people had to live through/with) sharp increases in police shootings of innocent men and boys (mostly) for crimes such as brandishing wallets in their doorways.

Do we need any more evidence that militarism is not a solution to complex social and political problems?

Our tax dollars at work...

Why don't you tell it to the children brutally murdered by the owner of that house?

She was protecting evil murderers - I have no pity - and neither would you if he murdered your wife & child!

Zizka, I guess you're not a big fan of Olympia? My wife and I are planning to move there.

Ben, so let me get this straight: if some member of your family killed someone, it's okay by you if the police/military come bulldoze your house, even if you had nothing whatsoever to do with the killing? How can you not see how unfair that is?

Furthermore, while I don't support the killing of civilians by EITHER side, surely you recognise that the Palestinians are fighting a guerrilla insurrection, not terribly different from that engaged in by the "patriots" who founded the U.S. Your inconsistency (assuming you don't think the so-called Revolutionary War was morally wrong too) really illustrates the old adage, "history is written by the winners."

I was in factual mode. Olympia also has the state legislature. Evergreen College is a state-supported alternative university which allows students to put together innovative programs, and lots of interesting people come from there. But I've lived in a similiar town -- Eugene -- and visited another one, Bellingham, and the college-town aspect does get old. I would imagine that the state-capital angle would make it worse. However, maybe it's just me.

Let us recall that these are the same "peace" activists who broke through an Israeli siege last May to bring food and medicine to wanted terrorists holed up in the Church of the Nativity.

Jack, there are indeed many counter-examples that one can cite with rhetorical impact. If you don't mind though, could I ask you to elaborate any wider arguments that such counter-examples are (presumably) in support of ?

Thanks.

You took one of your quotes out of context, but at least you put up the link. Note that the protestors own news source says:

"When the bulldozer refused to stop or turn aside she climbed up onto the mound of dirt and rubble being gathered in front of it wearing a fluorescent jacket to look directly at the driver who kept on advancing. The bulldozer continued to advance so that she was pulled under the pile of dirt and rubble."

If someone wants to commit suicide by jumping into the path of a bulldozer, you cannot make any serious claim they were murdered. You might be able to argue they martyred themselves, but I'd just argue she was terminally stupid.

The point is that these activists are political extremists who have unambiguously taken sides with the terrorists against Israel.

Here is an AP photo of Ms. Corrie burning a mock American flag at a rally in Rafah last month.

Is it not a particular form of American arrogance to assume entitlement to inject oneself into foreign war zones, and to expect to be able to do so without risk of death or injury?

If the man who stood in front of the Chinese tank had been run over, would you have blamed him for dying?

as usual Nathan, you distort and obfuscate..

Which human shield do you consider a war criminal and which one a civilian exercising his right of non violent civil disobedience?
Secretary Rumsfeld said:

"Deploying human shields is not a military strategy, it's murder, a violation of the laws of armed conflict and a crime against humanity, and it will be treated as such. Those who follow his (Saddam's) orders to use human shields will pay a severe price for their actions."
General Myers, referring to the arrival of the group from London, said:
"Using noncombatants to shield potential military targets -- even those who volunteer for this purpose -- could be considered a war crime in any conflict."
"If death or serious injury to a noncombatant resulted from these efforts, the individuals responsible for deploying any innocent civilians as human shields could be guilty of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions."

It is specifically Article 51 of the 1977 amendment of the 1949 Geneva Conventions that prohibits human shields.
"The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objects from attacks or to shield, favor or impede military operations."
I assume that the wording of article 51 was based on the assumption that it would cover just the involuntary movement and presence of civilians and human shields, but would not cover the case of a non violent civil disobedient acting as human shields. Is that assumption wrong?
Is it legally possible to define a volunteer, who acts as a human shield on his own initiative, as being "deployed"? Saddam Hussein can and certainly will "deploy" Iraqi civilians to act as human shields, but he has no authority to "deploy" or "order" foreigners, who enter Iraq voluntarily, to act as human shields.

If foreign human shields can't be considered "deployed", can they still be treated as "war criminals" under International or US law?

Can the US Armed Forces, for example, take French human shields in Iraq as POW and then try them as war criminals under the Geneva Convention in front of the ICC? Or could the US Armed Forces take US human shields as POW and try them for treason in the US? Would it legally make a difference, if the US invades with an UN mandate versus a unilateral action? If so, which one?

Latest UPI article on this subject
Geneva Convention, 1977 Addition, Civilians

Full discussion: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/2/21/122548/512

and why dont you look on the site to see the body of this poor woman.....

the ONLY place she is bleeding, is from her nose.

do you know what a body looks like after being run over twice by a 20 ton bulldozer tracks..?

.........how do you rationalize your ignorance and bias..?

Apparently David has never seen the full video of the Chinese man blocking the tanks. Bystanders ran forward and dragged him to the curb.

If he had been run over, would you have condemned him or the tank driver?

Your comparison is ridiculous. The situations are not directly comparable. The Chinese citizen was standing up for his OWN rights, by all accounts he was not an organized protester, he just happened to be walking home when he saw the tanks and took action.
The woman was an American inserting herself into a dispute halfway across the world, in which she had no personal stake. I blame the protest organizers for her death. They knew what would happen, they stood by took pictures of her being run down, instead of helping prevent the tragedy. I am cynical enough to believe they were hoping for an incident like this.

Why are American soldiers going to Iraq then? To stand up for their own rights, where they do not live?

That's a fair question. American soldiers are going to Iraq because they have orders from the Commander-in-Thief and to disobey them means court martial. Beyond that, nobody can figure out a legitimate reason for the US to invade Iraq. It sure as hell isn't to stand up for Iraqi's rights.

Nuts. I thought I had you there.

this person was 'run over' by a 20 ton bulldozer.?

people who are hit by cars or buldozer normally bleed........

anyone see any blood.?

im so very tired of the entire israel/palestine thing.

israel=government using tanks to kill
palestine="""government""" using people with bombs strapped to thier bodies to blow up buses full of highschool students and men,women, and young children.

no matter how you see it, we need to force these people to get along. its either that.. or we build a bubble around the entire area and make a pay-per-view channel.

Rachel Corrie was a stupid bitch. I'm glad she's out of the gene pool.

Idiotic for free people to support those who hate you and want to put the entire world under sharia law. Get a clue about sharia! She was "protecting" the very people who would have stoned her to death if she was from that society.

Rachel Corrie's death was, it would seem, an accident. She had trouble getting out of the way of the bulldozer, and slipped down toward it. The bulldozer did back up, but this maneuver seems to have been intended to avoid running her over. What the driver failed to realize was that Ms. Corrie had fallen underneath the machine. So she was run over. See http://jewishworldreview.com/0303/corrie.asp.

If this account is true, then the takeaway message has to do with Palestinian manipulation of the American Left. The reason why White Girls like Ms. Corrie are embraced or tolerated by Palestinians has a lot to do with their value as propaganda.

After her death, Palestinian organizations released a sequence of photos that (with a little help from Reuters) made it seem like Ms. Corrie had been run over while using a bullhorn to protest the bulldozing. Well, turns out the bullhorn photo was taken hours earlier. Liberals eat this stuff up, just like they did the Oops-I-Guess-There-Was-No-Massacre-After-All in Jenin.

It's helpful to be race conscious when the U.S. government concludes that Arabs and Blacks are terrorists but a white guy claiming to have explosives is just a curiosity. That's because the government is playing off assumptions by Conservative Americans that Arabs and Blacks are dangerous.

It's also helpful to be race conscious when Palestinians repeatedly lie to the White, Western world about events in Israel and Palestine. That's because their playing off assumptions by Liberal Westerners that Israelis are murderers.

Please don't fall for this stuff.

So what if the bullhorn was hours earlier? If the Israelis knew people were blocking the house then, they could expect it later.

The excuses for the death of Rachel Corrie are ridiculous.

And are the thousands of other Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers due to them "tripping" on bullets fired at them?

Disillusioning to see so many racists gathered on one website.

Rachel was murdered. The bulldozer ran over her twice. As she lay dying, the driver didn't try to help her, nor did any other IDF members. During her memorial, the IDF threw tear gas and sound grenades at those who had gathered to remember her.

IsraeliLover, please, try to hide such ugly racism.

>im so very tired of the entire israel/palestine thing.

zach said:israel=government using tanks to kill
palestine="""government""" using people with bombs strapped to thier bodies to blow up buses full of highschool students and men,women, and young children.

Zach, you should educate yourself on the situation before pontificating on it. There is a nation illegally occupying another country, oppressing them, humiliating them, and killing them (in much greater numbers than the Palestinians are killing Israelis...4 to 1).

To imply that there is symmetry here is pure ignorance.

no matter how you see it, we need to force these people to get along. its either that.. or we build a bubble around the entire area and make a pay-per-view channel.

Ploome - you are an idiot. Not even Israel disputed she was run over by a bulldozer. They said it was an accident by default means they admitted it happened. What is she supposed to look like some cartoon image of a flattened pancake? Get real. So what is your big theory on how she died then?

To all of you Israeli backers .. Israelis are nothing more than European colonists who have taken over the land of an established native people. None of the prime ministers have ever been even BORN in the land that is now Israel. You are like the settlers of the US who killed off the natives and called them savages when they fought back. Give me a break. The vast majority of Israelis have no genetic relation to the people of the Bible, they are converts to Judaism in the 9th century from the empire of Khazar.

Strapping on explosives is a measure of one's anger and desperation at learning that rocks and assault rifles are in no way matches for Apache and Cobra helicopter gunships, tanks, and armored personnel carriers backed by F-15 and F-16 jet fighters. The array of weapons and the policies that the Sharon government employs reflect such a callous disregard for human life that the addition of one American should have no impact.