Random Thoughts of Mine...

Malachi Ritscher holds up a sign during an antiwar protest in Chicago in this photo from April 2003. On Nov. 3, 2006, Ritscher set up a video camera, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire on expressway off-ramp in downtown Chicago. War protesters are hailing him as a martyr. (AP Photo/Joeff Davis)

I was glancing through a newspaper while on break at work earlier tonight and came across this article. Here's an excerpt from it:

In suicide by fire, an unheard protest
Anti-war message was lost for weeks
Ashley M. Heher, The Associated Press CHICAGO - Malachi Ritscher envisioned his death as one full of purpose.

He carefully planned the details, mailed a copy of his apartment key to a friend, created to-do lists for his family.

On his Web site, the 52-year-old experimental musician who had fought with depression even penned his obituary.

At 6:30 a.m. Nov. 3 -- four days before an election caused a seismic shift in Washington politics -- Ritscher, a frequent anti-war protester, stood by an off-ramp in downtown Chicago near a statue of a giant flame, set up a video camera, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire.

Aglow for the crush of morning commuters, his flaming body was supposed to be a call to the nation, a symbol of his rage and discontent with the U.S. war in Iraq.

"Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country," he wrote in his suicide note. "If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country."

There was only one problem: No one was listening.

[/I]Read the rest of the article here.

As some of you may know, I'm not a fan of this War in Iraq. There was lots of deception done by both the U.S. and British governments before the start of the war. These deceptions by these two governments still continues. There are many people that are protesting the war, but self-immolation is not a way that I would personally protest. There has already been thousands of American and Iraqi casualties in this war. The news coming out of Iraq gets more and more grim everyday. With the country now descending deeper into a religious civil war, this could have been prevented if the war had never started, I believe. Who knows how many more people will be killed and maimed? With America's armed forces stretched thin, some members of Congress want a return to conscription. Many American citizens oppose this. Many want our troops withdrawn from Iraq. This would be the best course of action, in my opinion. The Iraqis have governed themselves before this war, and can do the same afterwards.

Malachi Ritscher did not agree with this war and he also set up several websites against it too. I personally don't believe in killing yourself in protest over a war, but there are people in other cultures that do so readily. Mr. Ritscher wrote his own obituary and also left behind a suicide note. Was this man mentally disturbed or is he a martyr?

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