Journalists killed in Syria

[kimmy]

French photographer Remi Ochlik and American reporter Marie Colvin were killed today in Syria, and from what I heard on CBC radio as I was driving home, there is some belief that they were intentionally targeted by Syrian forces.

I just read this article about Marie Colvin and it sounds like she was an amazing person.

That eye-patch is not just a bad-ass fashion statement; she lost her left eye to shrapnel while covering the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. She also covered conflict in Kosovo, East Timor, Libya, Lebanon, three different wars in Iraq, and more. She met with Moammar Gaddafi often enough over the past 25 years that she wrote a book about it, called "Mad Dog and Me".

The part of the article that jumped out most was this:

She was never mawkish, but nor was she minded to stand idly by and witness massacres.

In East Timor in 1999, for example, as Indonesian troops closed in on a United Nations compound in Dili where 1500 people had taken shelter, the UN wanted to pull out and leave the refugees to their fate.

Marie Colvin and two other female journalists remained in place, defying the UN, and the world, to do nothing.

Eventually, shamed by the courage of the reporters, Indonesian forces allowed the refugees to leave and the international community stepped in.

Marie Colvin's presence had undoubtedly helped save many hundreds of lives.

They played Colvin's final report on CBC tonight, describing the death of an infant who had been hit by shrapnel; the child was beyond medical help and they could only watch helplessly. I think it would take an extraordinary person to keep throwing themselves into situations like that, where they face not only danger to themselves, but also knowing that they would see things that nobody would want to see. I would think that by this stage of her career, money was no longer a motivator and she must have been driven by passion (or perhaps mental illness?)

The nature of her work made the way she died unsurprising to her friends, and probably to Colvin herself:

Agonisingly for those who knew and loved her, however, that meant the nature of her death had a certain inevitability about it.

-k

[Wild Bill]

They played Colvin's final report on CBC tonight, describing the death of an infant who had been hit by shrapnel; the child was beyond medical help and they could only watch helplessly. I think it would take an extraordinary person to keep throwing themselves into situations like that, where they face not only danger to themselves, but also knowing that they would see things that nobody would want to see. I would think that by this stage of her career, money was no longer a motivator and she must have been driven by passion (or perhaps mental illness?)

Now Kimmy! Don't be so right wing and hawkish! You could get us into a war!

It's got nothing to do with us! The USA has to protect us so we don't need any military of our own. Syria is not a threat to Canada.

We should spend our military budget on more canoe museums in Shawinigan!

Let those children die! Let their girls grow up to be uneducated slaves and their boys to become child soldiers!

We should just let them all die! The hawks in this country just want a war for the sheer joy of it!

[fellowtraveller]

I think it would take an extraordinary person to keep throwing themselves into situations like that, where they face not only danger to themselves, but also knowing that they would see things that nobody would want to see. I would think that by this stage of her career, money was no longer a motivator and she must have been driven by passion (or perhaps mental illness?)

The obvious motivation is that she was an adrenalin junkie, and her death was more or less a matter of time. She was extraordinary, no question.

[olpfan1]

Journalists don't go in to war zones, or hurricanes to report news or help the people, they go there for the thrill, to say they were there, to say they survived.. but some are killed, and it is their own damn fault

[olpfan1]

I should add if she did save lives, that's more than I'll ever do, so may she rest in peace

[bush_cheney2004]

I should add if she did save lives, that's more than I'll ever do, so may she rest in peace

Good recovery....I was gonna add that she probably has bigger balls than either of us.

[olpfan1]

I was gonna add that she probably has bigger balls than either of us.

My balls aren't even balls, they are marbles

[guyser]

She was good there is no doubt, and I wish for her to rest in peace.

In East Timor in 1999, for example, as Indonesian troops closed in on a United Nations compound in Dili where 1500 people had taken shelter, the UN wanted to pull out and leave the refugees to their fate.

However , I believe this to be a a slight to moderate exageration.

As I recall, she must have been one of the two journalists that I was told had to be accommodated inside that compound. The true heros are the 2 canadian cops, conscripted by the UN to provide support and teaching the local police forces in East Timor who ran the compound, all without guns.

One was an RCMP officer from Montreal, the other a Staff Sargeant from the Toronto Police. There is a movie of them although no credits were applied.

Edited February 24, 2012 by guyser

[Moonlight Graham]

The obvious motivation is that she was an adrenalin junkie, and her death was more or less a matter of time. She was extraordinary, no question.

That seems like part of her motivation I think. I agree, it was a matter of time basically. She was brave and a great journalist it seemed though.

[August1991]

That eye-patch is not just a bad-ass fashion statement; she lost her left eye to shrapnel while covering the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. She also covered conflict in Kosovo, East Timor, Libya, Lebanon, three different wars in Iraq, and more. She met with Moammar Gaddafi often enough over the past 25 years that she wrote a book about it, called "Mad Dog and Me".

What's your point, kimmy?

In a different life, I recall going to meetings of military bureaucrats who discussed how to destroy a place, and then going to another meeting of do-good NGO/bureaucrats who wanted to help people who lived in the same war zone. (In Internet language: WTF?)

In a still earlier life, years more ago, I met someone like the woman of your OP, kimmy: a Western tourist to third world poverty/conflict. She was a Western journalist who had flown into Colombo, Sri Lanka.

----

This is the 21st century. There are rich Westerners who jump out of airplanes, fly into space and travel in poor countries filled with criminals. I guess that, like obsessive drug addicts, these Westerners like the excitement.

Eye-patch? Syria?

This is not 1983.

Edited February 25, 2012 by August1991

[bush_cheney2004]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBs7DQ6Q9g8&feature=related

[olpfan1]

I remember seeing that prosthetic eye girl on one of the chat roulette videos where a guy is sitting with a guitar or piano and singing random things about the people he sees on webcam and when she came on he said something funny

Found it ..4 minutes 7 seconds in lol

[xul]

It seems like a good news.

Now every soul which has been sent and will be sent to another world by recent events has two "writers" making "story" for them or of them.