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No good deed goes unpunished
Margaret Hassan dedicated her life to giving aid and comfort to those less fortunate than herself.
This is how her kindness been repaid:
Kidnapped aid worker Margaret Hassan was believed to be dead Tuesday after a video received by Al-Jazeera television showed a hooded figure shooting a blindfolded woman in the head.
The British government and Hassan's family in London said they believed the longtime director of CARE in Iraq was the victim. CARE said it was in mourning for the 59-year-old Briton who worked for decades providing food, medicine and humanitarian aid to Iraqis.
The video shows a militant firing a pistol into the head of a blindfolded woman wearing an orange jumpsuit, Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout said. "She was presumed to be Mrs. Hassan," he told The Associated Press.
The station initially said it would air parts of the video, but Ballout then said it would not.
I presume that Al-Jazeera declined to show the video because it shows the Iraqi "insurgents" as what they are; cold blooded killers, the enemies of everything that is good in the world.
I suppose we could be consoled by the fact that Mrs. Hassan was spared the manner of death meted out to Nick Berg, Paul Johnson and so many others.
But I'm not consoled by that.
Not one bit.
-posted by Charlie Eklund
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Sad to think how much safer Margaret Hassan was while Saddam Hussein was in power. What a terrible shame. Unfortunately, this is what we have brought to Iraq. The creeps who killed her must bear the responsibility for the act, but we should be ashamed of what we have done to a country that was no threat to our security. Now these people have no security at all, and nothing but chaos and violence on the horizon. Catastrophic success indeed.
Neil
11/18/04 11:03 PM
I wrote and posted an earlier reply, then upon further relection, deleted it. It was a little...hot-headed. Not the tone I prefer to take.
Nevertheless, I couldn't disagree more with your characterization of the war in Iraq. I don't intend to debate it, any more than I would argue with a person who was convinced that the earth is flat.
So I'll just leave it at that.
- Charlie Eklund