Samir Kassir Killed!
Samir Kassir was killed this morning at 11:15 am when a bomb ripped through his car in Ashrafieh.Other casualties are reported.
Samir Kassir is known to be a free-willed journalist who staunchly defeneded democracy and civil rights in Lebanon, as well as bitterly criticizing the Syrian presence in Lebanon and the corrupt goverment.
He is a martyr.
May he rest in peace...
posted by Ramzi @ 11:10 AM
21 Comments:
I'm shocked! I was a faithful reader of his articles and attended many of his lectures.
What I can't believe is each time we say: "the chain of bombings is finally over" it just keep coming back!"
:((((((((((((((((((((((
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Fellow bloggers, i'm suggesting, as an act of solidarity with the late Samir Kassir, for all of us to change our profile picture to his picture for five days.
the message: "we are all samir"
Mustapha
The Beirut Spring
Good idea Mustapha. Done.
Can someone give me the URL of the photo? I don't know what's wrong with my flickr account.
It is awful how they are facing the words and ideas with violence and terror...
Allah yirhamo
marsden... samir said on future tv just a few days ago that syrians are threatning his life...
thx for the URL, Ahmad.
Marsden... please just stop this! Nobody on this blog pointed blame at anyone and already you are defending Syria & Co.
The man has only been dead a few hours, we are still shocked and grieving, and you are already spewing hatered. Spare us your spite right now. We barely endure it on good days...
Marsden, GET A LIFE!
I'm shocked. This should cause furious anger among us. Has nothing really changed?
Marsden,
Qassir was Palestinian and fought on behalf of Palestine and Palestinian rights.
For crying out loud, know your facts.
Qassir also fought for the Syrian people, something that the Syrian regimes does not do.
Can you counter that.
"I guess it was the Syrians this time around too"
"And Future TV and Hariri, Inc. are liars"
The first statement is a sarcastic way of absolving Syria of this, not very subtle Marsden. Unless of course you actually meant to say you suspect they did it in which case Hell should be freezing over any time now.
As for the second we all know who Hariri Inc. - as you put it - believe is responsible. So again, calling them liars is defending Syria.
I don't know who did it and didn't accuse anyone or assign blame. Why this pathologic need to continously push your agenda, even in a solemn obituary like this post?!
Marsden,
By focusing on the opposition's response on the same day as a man's assassination is to reduce the significance of the tragedy.
The point of this post was not who is to blame. But you jumped to that before anyone here made any statement.
While all of Lebanon wept for a horrendous crime against a man practicing freedom of speech, a right we all desire, you focus on what a minority of the population - the opposition politicians - did.
Then you went one step further by bringing America into the picture. No, you didn't do this directly, but I'm guessing - according to your last post - that this was the "sarcastic way" of criticizing the American response. I can't figure out any other reason why you would argue, however sarcastically, that Palestinians would kill a Palestinian who eagerly fought for Palestinian rights and an unoccupied state.
Rather than lauding a hero, you made a memorial post into a place for arguments about politics.
It seems you have forgotten that all of the participants in the debate are humans, and the death of one participant warrants a rise above politics.
Marsden, I was just wondering: Does it count as sarcasm when I laugh at your logic with saying what you say?
I'm still on the rocks. But here's an article by Fisk, Syria's troops have gone. So who killed Samir, Lebanon's fearless journalist?
An interesting article, Liminal.
Marsden,
The subject of the post was not about the opposition. It was about Qassir.
By the way, I did post on the opposition response and I did call them disingenuous, but I did not do it in a memorial post.
Also, it's really sad that whenever I call out Jumblatt, people claim I'm anti-Druze. Whenever I slam Aoun, I'm anti-Christian, anti-freedom, and pro-Syria. Whenever I call out Hezbollah, I'm anti-Shia, anti-poor, and pro-Israel.
Go ahead an continue stereotyping everyone and limiting them to grand snippets. When you do this, you sound like all the rightwing crazies on the American blogs. I can't stand the comments on littlegreenfootballs because the people think they are being witty through sarcasm, but are actually promoting an ignorant and racist agenda.
The opposition did not respond uniformly to the blast. Neither did the Americans.
You're using Qassir's death as a further example as to why the opposition is bad. In doing so, you're failing to even address what the significance of the man's life and death are. Perhaps you simply don't know.
Marsden,
What I'm pointing out, and you refuse to accept, is that you're being a total jerk.
I tried to say it nicely. But you seem unable to reconcile your anger with logic.
I was completely disgusted by your comments when I read them. I had just been talking to Qassir's daughter, Rana, when I came to read this piece in Qassir's memory. You began this pathetic anti-opposition, anti-American, "sarcastic" comment.
To counter your arguments about American/French involvement, uhhhh... Giselle asked for them to step in, and they are willing to do so. Of course, they have their own reasons. But are you going to beat up on Giselle for seeking aid?
Yep. That's exactly what Dan Marsden's gonna do.
I didn't call you racist, but I compared your comments to LGF because that's exactly what they remind me of. You only comment for political gain. You didn't give a damn about Qassir. You couldn't wait to throw out a stupid political argument.
I'll compare you to someone else. Michel Aoun. You're really reminding me of him right now.
He's willing to compare a man to the person that man thinks killed his father. I'm talking her about Aoun comparing Saad to Rustom Ghazaleh.
Aoun will say anything to gain attention. He says incredibly harmful things because he wants to. So does Dan Marsden.
Fight your battles somewhere, man. Samir Qassir's funeral is nowhere for an anti-opposition protest.
Samir Kassir is not an ordinary guy like most of our journalists and politicians. He was a free man, who believed in the Arab world, and wanted its modernization. He was moderate and believed in Peace, modernization, mutlipartism, democracy, Social Justice…
So the entire political system in Lebanon (opposition and others), the Syrians and all the Arab rulers have an interest in his killing. I'm sure that we will never know who killed him, because, alas, he was killed in Lebanon. But there is one thing I'm sure of, his death is a very big loss for Lebanon and the entire Arab world.
Post a Comment
<< Home