Fabrizio Quattrocchi
and the hostage video of the week is ...
.
Margaret Hassan pleading to Tony Blair for her life.
.
After several weeks of the whole Ken Bigley thing, including several video pleas and the extended media post mortems, we were given a few days off before it started all over again.
.
THE F*CKING MEDIA IS ONLY ENCOURAGING FURTHER KIDNAPPINGS BY GIVING THIS SH*T AIRTIME!!!
.
THE F*CKING MEDIA IS ONLY ENCOURAGING FURTHER KIDNAPPINGS BY GIVING THIS SH*T AIRTIME!!!
I am no fan of the war, or Tony Blair, but we only compound a bad decision by making a dog's breakfast of its conduct. The US and UK should, and will, leave. This is an unwinnable war. Our governments broke the golden rule of any conflict or arguement, from a playgrounnd scrap through to all out war; only fight when you have a clear, achievable objective and only when you are strong enough to make winning that objective a certainty.
.
Sadly, it will be a Vietnam style exit. Our governments will negotiate a face-saving agreement and the puppet Iraqi regime will collapse about five minutes after the last coalition soldier leaves. Cue the shots of all those 'democratic' US-sponsored Iraqi politicians and their families flinging themselves and suitcases of cash and consumer electronics onto the last helicopter out of Baghdad.
.
Having said that we shouldn't be playing into the hands of lunatics in the meantime. Any non Iraqi national in Iraq must know by now that they are a target. If they get kidnapped that's a direct result of a risk they chose to take; not Tony Blair, not George Bush. Ken Bigley should have known that. Margaret Hassan should have known that. So what if she's a care worker. The Red Cross got the message last year and pulled out after taking casualties.
.
I feel a lot more sympathy for Margaret Hassan than Ken Bigley, whose only reason for being in Iraq was to profit directly from the war, nevertheless, she is living with the consequences of her decisions. Maybe she thought she was safe because she holds Iraqi citizenship and is married to an Iraqi. If so, she's not doing her cause much good by sobbing to Tony Blair and the British government on home movies. By associating herself with one of the occupying powers she's tying her own noose.
.
And the BBC, CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera, all of them, are playing the terrorists' game. We saw plenty of Ken Bigley's last moments ...
.
"Here I am again, Mr Blair . . . very, very close to the end of my life,"
.
"You don't appear to have done anything to help me. I'm not a difficult person. I am a simple man who just wants to live a simple life with his family."
.
Yup, his last two minutes on this Earth and he chose to lay into Tony Blair. No last message for his wife or family. No call for an end to the madness. None of the clarity that supposedly comes with the certainty of an imminent death; just the bleating of a lamb being led to the slaughter.
.
Contrast this with the last few seconds of Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi back in April. He yanked at his hood and cried defiantly, 'I will show you how an Italian dies!' before taking one in the back of the head. He ruined the movie for his killers. That's the video we should be shown round the clock. That's the man we should have held a two minutes silence for.
.
But, as television, it's nowhere near as good as watching people whimpering for mercy. A man showing courage and snatching victory away from his murderers in the face of death doesn't play well in our cynical world. As a race, we get our kicks from watching people worse-off than ourselves. Fabrizio Quattrocchi's death did not serve the purposes of either the pro or the anti-war lobbies. Bush and Co. want us to fear terrorism so that they can play their games. The anti-war brigade wants to sicken us with the sight of pathetic, squalid, ignoble death. At the time of his death, a few US and UK commentators tried to play the 'heroes like that show us all what we are fighting against' card. Yet another sleazy attempt by repellent reptile politicians to legitimise their actions on the back of someone's corpse. Quattrocchi wasn't fighting the war against terror. He was trying to make a few Euros so he could buy a house and get married. He rolled the dice, lost and took it on the chin. He didn't die for or against Bush or Blair. He died as an adult, taking responsibility for his own destiny.
.
Cynical as I am, I feel an almost overwhelming feeling of sadness that a man like that should die without living a full span and bringing a few kids into the world. We are all poorer for that kind of strength being taken from us. Rightly or wrongly, Ken Bigley's demise left me no such feelings. When it mattered, Fabrizio displayed no fear and a staggering degree of nobility. He showed us all up; the terrorists AND the fear-manipulated, passive consumers of Death Porn in the West. That's why you haven't seen that particular video.
2 comments:
There is no noble way to be murdered. I wonder how you would behave if placed in the same position as Ken Bigley and the others, after weeks of physical and mental stress. People who think they would die with nobility or be very brave about it all are usually the first to cry when faced with a situation for real. You just never know how you will react until it happens to you, so don't go judging people when you know nothing about what it feels like to be in that situation. I'm sure that all of these murdered people could not have given a toss about the politics pros and cons of the situation, they were just trying to stay alive the best way the knew how. I'm pretty sure that I would whimper like a puppy if I thought I was just about to have my head cut off with a large knife but I don't know for certain because I have no experience of such a situation. I suspect that Ken Bigley, from the way he was speaking had no idea that his death was coming in the next few seconds anyway. If you were Jew walking to the gas chamber, surrounded by armed guards but not entirely certain that you are about to die, perhaps they really do want you to have a shower - would you kick up a fuss and tell the Germans what you thought? Or, would you keep quiet in the hope that you might live another day?
It's so easy to make silly judgments about the victims of murder in Iraq from the safety and comfort of your armchair, try being so 'brave' after weeks in a cage under the constant threat of summery execution! I suspect most of us would be no different to the victims we see on our tv's. I think most of us would have turned in to a jibbering idiot within a couple of weeks.
This is an old posting and I doubt that few will encounter your comment but you took time writing this and it deserves a response.
I totally agree with the thrust of what you're saying. It would be truly horrible to be in that position and there's no justification for what was done to Bigley and the others.
However, I stand by what I was trying to say.
At the time this piece was written the media was FULL of the Bigley story. Not because anybody in the media gave a shit about his fate but because it made good TV. There was a Devil's bargain between the media and the terrorists, with one group producing 'copy' and another group airing that copy.
And, yes, I'm sitting in the comfort of my own home making judgements. I'm not happy about that. I would rather there was no situation to make judgements about. And, yes, I may very well have ended up blubbing like Bigley in the same situaton, no doubt, which is why I admire those who spoil that 'good copy'.
And if we're putting ourselves in other people's shoes, how would it feel to be an Iraqi living in a war-ravaged country? How would you feel about the thousands of 'civilian contractors' profiteering off your country's misfortune; either as 'security consultants' or helping to construct military infrastructure? Would you you think the fate of any one of them more important and more newsworthy or more deserving of sympathy than the tens of thousands of your own countrymen who have been killed?
Here's another judgement I'm making from my armchair. I despise that war. I despise it because it is immoral and because innocent people are dying every day. They didn't choose to enter a war zone because the pay was good. The war zone came to them. The day I see videos of their suffering aired 24/7 I'll stop thinking about, and writing, pieces like this.
Post a Comment