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Parents Seek Probe in Activist's Death
Seattle Times ^ | 03-19-03 | florangela davila

Posted on 03/19/2003 5:48:54 PM PST by MarMema

Craig and Cindy Corrie spent yesterday in Washington, D.C., demanding lawmakers begin a U.S.-led investigation into the death of their youngest daughter, Rachel.

It's a shift for them to take up a cause, Craig Corrie said. It was Rachel who was always so socially and politically conscious. She was the family's activist.

"We learned from her," said Corrie, an insurance actuary who with his wife raised three children in Olympia.

On Sunday, the world first learned of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American killed by an Israeli military bulldozer in the Gaza Strip as she sought to stop the demolition of a Palestinian house. Her death was called an accident by Israeli officials, who said they would investigate.

But that isn't enough for her family, said her father, who told lawmakers the investigation should be handled by the FBI or State Department, and not left to the Israeli government.

"We want them to be our eyes and ears since Rachel can't," said Craig Corrie, now forced to think about how his daughter lived and died.

As the youngest, she was precocious, inquisitive and articulate. She was raised in a rural neighborhood outside Olympia called Mud Bay, in a house with chickens, rabbits, a cat and a dog.

She was concerned and compassionate about the world around her, her family said. Some of that came from attending an alternative elementary school the Corries helped found in the 1980s. The school's core curriculum focuses on the environment, social justice and peace.

As a fifth-grader at Options School, she and her classmates held a news conference on the state Capitol steps to call attention to world hunger. As a high-school student, she helped foreign-exchange students learn about America, and even spent six weeks in Russia.

In college, she was working with the homeless, staffing a suicide hotline and, given her affinity for art, she once helped outfit children and adults as doves to march in an annual "Procession of the Species" parade.

"My family always encouraged her to support her own beliefs and to think about her place in the community," said her brother, Chris Corrie, of Falls Church, Va. "Rachel was never into herself. It was just the opposite. In some ways, I think she was almost embarrassed about the things she had. She always felt she could find a better use for money."

Slim and blond, Corrie had a gentle, soft presence, her first-grade teacher, as well as faculty at The Evergreen State College, recalled. She was an avid writer, keeping journals from a young age. "She came with a deep set of convictions about the world and what needed to be changed," said Lin Nelson of the Evergreen faculty.

Spoke to schoolchildren

Before she left for Israel in January, Corrie spoke about her trip at her elementary school and collected the children's letters that she planned to deliver to Palestinian youngsters. She had wanted to start up a pen-pal project, as well a sister-city program.

Options School held an assembly yesterday in her memory.

Corrie also worked at Olympia's Behavioral Health Resources, a counseling center. As a young woman who had grown up in Olympia, friends say she was widely known in town because she had her hand in so many political groups, including one that opposed an Iraq war and another seeking a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"If you were paying attention, you knew who she was," said Peter Dorman, an Evergreen economics teacher.

She was especially drawn toward peace activism, friends added, after Sept. 11, 2001. Then, as the war with Iraq loomed, college faculty members and friends said, Corrie decided to go to Israel.

She felt a war in the Persian Gulf would only escalate the violence directed at the Palestinians. Friends introduced her to the International Solidarity Movement, said Phan Nguyen, a two-time volunteer.

The movement calls itself a Palestinian-led group that uses nonviolent acts to challenge the Israeli government.

In the absence of any international peacekeeping force in Israel and the disputed territories, according to Amnesty International, the movement is "on the ground and reporting back."

"The work that they do, really, no one else is doing," said Amnesty's Marty Rosenbluth. "They will ride in ambulances with Palestinian patients that need to get to the hospital. They'll travel with people who need routine medical care."

A friend of Corrie's from Olympia was headed to Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, Nguyen said. Corrie wanted to follow him there, instead of going to the West Bank, because violence in Gaza is often overlooked in media reports, he added.

For nearly two months, Corrie was stunned by the level of everyday violence and in awe of Palestinians trying to live ordinary lives, which she chronicled in

e-mail to friends and family.

Pictures show her with a bullhorn, standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer intent on razing a Palestinian house. In another, more incendiary photo, she looks angry, wearing a head scarf, holding up a burning paper U.S. flag.

That photo, said her brother Chris, does not adequately explain who his sister really was.

"I think she was so emotionally charged because she was seeing weapons used on children. I think there's a value in not judging someone on one moment but rather on the thoughts they can articulate when they really think about things."

Due to graduate this year

Corrie, who would have graduated this year, hinted about living abroad after graduation, perhaps teaching English.

"People have speculated that if she knew the outcome, would she have gone?" her brother said. "I think she probably would have."

"Before she left," said her dad, "she said she was frightened. I told her, 'You don't have to go. You could change your mind.' She said, 'No, I have to do this. I'm very frightened but I'll be able to do it.' "


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: palestine; parentsareactivists; rachelcorrie
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To: fatrat
the investigation should be to determine why her parents raised her to hate america.

Her parents helped found the school that taught her so. I wonder how many others have been lost that way?

Becki

141 posted on 03/20/2003 7:27:07 AM PST by Becki (Pray continually for our leaders and our troops!)
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To: Mr_Magoo
Just because some anonymou scaption writer used the words "moments before" when it's obvious from the lighting that such was not the case doesn't mean the photos were doctored, which is what some tin-foilers have been claiming.
142 posted on 03/20/2003 8:42:57 AM PST by mvpel (Michael Pelletier)
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To: syriacus
All these dipdingle parents have left is the knowledge that their kid is "a Pallie martyr."

Let that thought keep them warm on a cold night.

143 posted on 03/20/2003 8:58:28 AM PST by Ciexyz
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To: PennsylvaniaMom
Look at the expressions on the faces of the assembled children...kinda like "wow, another photo-op with a nutty infidel...kewl...my friends on Gaza will see me on CNN." I mean look at their faces, its like been there, done that, another American flag burning...yawn, is it time for lunch yet? Yet she is shreiking and gnarling like the people around her care about what is doing and why she is there...talk about being 'usefull idiot.'

The look on her face was pure evil. Anohter fine product of Western American liberals.

144 posted on 03/20/2003 10:10:22 AM PST by montag813
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To: drhogan; bigunreal
Have you taken a good look at those pictures of Rachel standing in front of the bull dozer? They are fake. The shadow is wrong and the boyfriend has no feet in one picture. The proportions between Rachel and the bulldozer are radically different between photo 1 and 2.

Who killed her really?
145 posted on 03/20/2003 2:09:32 PM PST by TaxRelief (You mean people keep little jars of diseases in their garages?)
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Comment #146 Removed by Moderator

To: wolficatZ
Nice little photo montage. I have only seen comparable looks of rage a couple of times in my life. Such as when I refused to get into the car of a man who offered me a ride when I was walking home from school one day. He turned out to be a mass murderer. This girl's hatred is (was) frightening.
147 posted on 03/20/2003 8:42:12 PM PST by exDemMom (W in '04)
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To: Diogenesis
Blinded by hatred, Rachel acted unwisely.

The rest is physics.

Sue Newton.

148 posted on 03/20/2003 8:43:56 PM PST by PhilDragoo (Hitlery: das Butch von Buchenvald)
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To: bigunreal
I think the thing you fail to realize here is that actions have consequences, something that apparently isn't taught in school, except maybe in Science Class, and maybe not even then. Standing in front of a bulldozer may be seen as a legitimate act by some, but to most of us, it's just plain dumb! Her death is a tragedy (any death is, to someone or to many someones), but that doesn't override the fact that the girl did something stupid, and unfortunately paid for her mistake with her life. She deliberately stood in front of the bulldozer. The driver should have stopped, I agree, but he also had a job to do, and was apparently under orders to get that job done. She was in his way. He would have had reason to believe, as most would, that no one would be stupid enough to stand there long enough to actually be run over by the dozer. To blame Israel for the actions of a bulldozer driver who didn't realize how far this girl would carry her protest is wrong, and it's wrong to make this girl a martyr, too.
149 posted on 03/20/2003 8:56:00 PM PST by nobdysfool (Let God be true, and every man a liar....)
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To: dennisw
At least you're truthful about your total lack of compassion. Honesty is a good quality to have.
150 posted on 03/21/2003 12:18:37 AM PST by bigunreal
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To: bigunreal
At least you're truthful about your total lack of compassion. Honesty is a good quality to have.

INCORRECT. I have not posted one crude joke about her. If you want to waste time looking at my posting record you can confirm this. I do feel sorry for her and the same time consider her a brainwashed tool of the Islamics. The Islamics exploited her alive and now that she's dead.
151 posted on 03/21/2003 12:25:26 AM PST by dennisw
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To: MarMema
Someone should investigate the parents for being idiots. They set her up as someone that could never be happy, let her live her short life not believing in anything but that which assailed her senses. No God obviously, nothing but liberal claptrap. Play with the bull, get gored........It is as simple as that, and her parents were responsible for her end.
152 posted on 03/21/2003 12:31:11 AM PST by jeremiah (Sunshine scares all of them, for they all are cockaroaches)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Correction to the naming of Rachel Corrie.........not US citizen, but world citizen.
153 posted on 03/21/2003 12:33:06 AM PST by jeremiah (Sunshine scares all of them, for they all are cockaroaches)
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To: ValerieUSA
Mud bay is a small suburb of the state capitol, about two minutes from the nearest Starbucks, or a Bradshaw bomb to the capitol building. They can see the dome of the capitol across a half mile of the bay.
154 posted on 03/21/2003 12:39:17 AM PST by jeremiah (Sunshine scares all of them, for they all are cockaroaches)
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To: bigunreal
I would feel for her parents but they didn't seem too sad to me in their rush to be political.
155 posted on 03/21/2003 1:52:56 AM PST by MarMema
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To: bigunreal
As for her, she was supporting the actions of terrorists.
Terrorists who have acted with greater cruelty than most humans on this planet. I have not forgotten the one year old in the stroller who screamed for her mother as she was dying from being burned alive. The Israeli one year old, killed horribly by terrorists linked to the very ones Rachel was trying to protect and probably was helping.
156 posted on 03/21/2003 1:56:12 AM PST by MarMema
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To: dennisw; All
I have puzzled over this image a couple of days. I'm no expert, but have dabbled a little bit in image manipulation, and I think both people have been added later. The girl doesn't even look to scale compared to the guy, which is supposedly less than a body length away. And as others have noticed, there's no shadow from the guy, though there is shadow around his elbow. And he has no feet.

This is definitely a Leftist SCAM which the parents and ambulance chasing lowlifes will try and use to garner sympathy.


157 posted on 03/21/2003 9:59:32 PM PST by JoJo Gunn (Help control the Leftist population. Have them spayed or neutered....)
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To: MarMema
For nearly two months, Corrie was stunned by the level of everyday violence and in awe of Palestinians trying to live ordinary lives, which she chronicled in e-mail to friends and family.

...

"I think she was so emotionally charged because she was seeing weapons used on children. I think there's a value in not judging someone on one moment but rather on the thoughts they can articulate when they really think about things."

She was also an admirer of suicide bombers. "Peace" is a relative term, you see.

158 posted on 03/21/2003 10:01:43 PM PST by xm177e2 (Stalinists, Maoists, Ba'athists, Pacifists: Why are they always on the same side?)
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To: MarMema

These two parents should be arrested and charged with child endangerment and neglect for allowing their poor daughter's head to be filled with such PC mush and Leftist rhetoric.

159 posted on 03/21/2003 10:05:10 PM PST by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: bigunreal
Craig and Cindy Corrie spent yesterday in Washington, D.C., demanding lawmakers begin a U.S.-led investigation into the death of their youngest daughter, Rachel.

Hey Craig and Cindy, look in the mirror and you will see who is responsible for your daughter's death.

160 posted on 03/21/2003 10:08:31 PM PST by LisaAnne
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