In the gung-ho US conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, the media heroes so far have been soldiers who in their sacrifice and suffering represented something special about the American spirit.
There was Pat Tillman, the football player who gave up a lucrative contract with the National Football League to become a soldier only to die in a bloody firefight, which much later turned out to be the result of friendly fire.
Then there was Private Jessica Lynch, who was captured and then supposedly rescued in a daring commando operation. Here, too, it transpired that the story was an elaborate Pentagon PR ploy, and that Lynch had actually been well treated. When her rescuers reached her she was lying in a hospital left unguarded by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's crumbling forces.
ILLUSTRATION: YU SHA
But the story of the latest American hero lauded on the nation's television shows and in its newspapers is very different.
Marla Ruzicka, 28, was killed on April 16 when a car she was traveling in became embroiled in an attack on a military convoy on the notorious airport road in Baghdad. Ruzicka was trapped as the vehicle went up in flames.
The pretty, blue-eyed blonde burned to death on the bloody streets of Baghdad.
Sadly, the story of brave and idealistic young Americans burning to death in their vehicles in Iraq is hardly newsworthy any more. But what turned Ruzicka into a posthumous media star was the fact that she wasn't there as a member of the military or working for the government or as a journalist seeking fame and glory.
She was a humanitarian aid worker who 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 a representative of the organization she founded, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict.
devoted
Ruzicka was devoted to cataloguing the innocent victims of the war and almost single-handedly prompting the US government to compensate them.
According to an aide to US Senator Patrick Leahy, it was her work that got Congress to approve US$20 million to compensate these victims, who had lost arms, legs, sons and mothers in the exercise of American might.
"I wish we had a hundred people like her around the world, and I'm devastated we have one less," Leahy said on Thursday on NBC Nightly News.
The days that followed her death were filled with glowing tributes -- and not just in the newspapers covering her home town, Lakeport, California, or liberal nationals like the New York Times. The arch protector of conservative values, the Wall Street Journal, even published a piece on her on its op-ed page.
The Wall Street Journal said that the smiling images of Ruzicka that have appeared since her death were an accurate window on the soul of an aid worker.
"The Marla I knew was no fan of the Bush administration," the paper's correspondent said. "But she didn't indulge in cynicism or moral equivalence. She was actually there -- it should never have to be said about an `aid' worker -- to help. By approaching the world -- including those in it with whom she disagreed -- so constructively, Marla was able to make a real difference. America has lost a peerless and unique ambassador."
Elsewhere, publications from Time magazine to USA Today and from the Chicago Times to the San Francisco Chronicle lauded the extraordinary young woman.
The peerless humanitarian and left-wing activist grew up in a staunchly Republican household in northern California. Her parents said that even as a child she was committed to helping others. But by all accounts the saintly girl was by no means a self-righteous finger-wagger. Friends and acquaintances remembered her as a committed party girl, almost as devoted to her sense of fun as she was to her sense of justice.
The unlikely combination seemed to serve her well, making her a favorite of Baghdad's foreign press contingent and keeping her out of trouble numerous times until her luck ran out.
"She hugged and laughed her way through war zones with an effervescence belying her seriousness of purpose," wrote the Los Angeles Times. "She waved aside tough-looking guards from all corners of the world, never looking back to see if they had raised an AK-47 in her direction."
Many of the more than 600 mourners, including friends, family, colleagues and journalists who traveled from around the world for her funeral on Saturday, shared memories of Ruzicka's boundless energy that helped her accomplish much in her 28 years.
Kevin Danaher, co-founder of San Francisco-based Global Exchange, a nonprofit international human-rights organization, said Ruzicka's magic was understanding and showing unconditional love.
"That's why a 28-year-old woman from a small town in northern California has so many people around the world grieving for her," Danaher said.
tragedy
The Reverend Ted Oswald, who conducted the Mass at St. Mary's Catholic Church, said it was sad that it took a tragedy to bring to light all the good Ruzicka did.
Oswald also recounted the time when an 8-year-old Ruzicka sold rocks door-to-door to buy carnations for her mother. She even managed to get the flowers on the cheap from the florist.
Ruzicka's activism began in Lakeport, 560km north of San Francisco, where she worked at a convalescent home, helped abused children and started a girl's soccer team in high school. Eventually, it led her around the world -- to parts of Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.
With passion for her cause and an unbridled capacity for having fun, she was remembered as a force of nature, a cross between Mother Teresa and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, said Quill Lawrence, a radio reporter for the BBC.
Ruzicka often arrived in war-torn places unprepared and nearly broke, he said.
But Lawrence said she quickly managed to win over the hearts of those she was helping and those whose help she needed.
Lawrence said Ruzicka repaid favors with her friendship, kindness and a ready smile. She organized parties, slipped heartfelt notes under the doors of friends' rooms and hugged guards at military checkpoints.
"She made me feel like I was the greatest person on earth," Lawrence told the crowd. "I have it in writing. And I know all of you do as well."
Bobby Muller, chairman of Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, said the true value of Ruzicka's work was her ability to counter people's cynicism.
"Marla demonstrated the fact that an individual can make a profound difference in this world," Muller said. "This woman was our inspiration."
They did it again. For the whole world to see: an image of a Taiwan flag crushed by an industrial press, and the horrifying warning that “it’s closer than you think.” All with the seal of authenticity that only a reputable international media outlet can give. The Economist turned what looks like a pastiche of a poster for a grim horror movie into a truth everyone can digest, accept, and use to support exactly the opinion China wants you to have: It is over and done, Taiwan is doomed. Four years after inaccurately naming Taiwan the most dangerous place on
Wherever one looks, the United States is ceding ground to China. From foreign aid to foreign trade, and from reorganizations to organizational guidance, the Trump administration has embarked on a stunning effort to hobble itself in grappling with what his own secretary of state calls “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” The problems start at the Department of State. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asserted that “it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power” and that the world has returned to multipolarity, with “multi-great powers in different parts of the
President William Lai (賴清德) recently attended an event in Taipei marking the end of World War II in Europe, emphasizing in his speech: “Using force to invade another country is an unjust act and will ultimately fail.” In just a few words, he captured the core values of the postwar international order and reminded us again: History is not just for reflection, but serves as a warning for the present. From a broad historical perspective, his statement carries weight. For centuries, international relations operated under the law of the jungle — where the strong dominated and the weak were constrained. That
On the eve of the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) made a statement that provoked unprecedented repudiations among the European diplomats in Taipei. Chu said during a KMT Central Standing Committee meeting that what President William Lai (賴清德) has been doing to the opposition is equivalent to what Adolf Hitler did in Nazi Germany, referencing ongoing investigations into the KMT’s alleged forgery of signatures used in recall petitions against Democratic Progressive Party legislators. In response, the German Institute Taipei posted a statement to express its “deep disappointment and concern”
RSS