U.S. Fines Woman for Being 'Human Shield'

SARASOTA, Fla. - A retired schoolteacher who went to Iraq to serve as a "human shield" against the U.S. invasion is facing thousands of dollars in U.S. government fines, which she is refusing to pay.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury said in a March letter to Faith Fippinger that she broke the law by crossing the Iraqi border before the war. Her travel to Iraq violated U.S. sanctions that prohibited American citizens from engaging in "virtually all direct or indirect commercial, financial or trade transactions with Iraq."

She and others from 30 countries spread out through Iraq to prevent the war. She spent about three months there. Only about 20 of nearly 300 "human shields" were Americans, she said.

Fippinger, who returned home May 4, is being fined at least $10,000, but she has refused to pay. She could face up to 12 years in prison.

Yahoo

would she rather be charged with Treason...which could get her the Death penalty?

Stupidity has it's price....

While I agree with their right to protest...direct aid/comfort to the enemy in a time of war is treason. The current charge against her, seems doomed to fail in court though, as being a human shield is difficult to tout as a "commercial, financial, or trade" transaction....

I can't help but wonder what those people expected to result from their actions? Did they really think they could stop G.W. BUSH?

Am I living on the same plane as those folks? Here on my plane, good ole Bush has been very determined to be at war with Iraq and protesters are merely flies the Bush administration has swatted away...

What do we do when our government ceases to consider public opinion?

This woman was placing herself in harms way, to preserve life, so why is it that the message is not clear?

What is the message here?

Don't make it more complicated than it is.

LIFE is trying to save LIFE.
Don't place any more labels on things that do not need to be there.

Gazrok, killing life is stupidity, not saving it. Knowing the difference between the two is very important if LIFE is to continue. Are you alive?

[Edited on 11-8-2003 by mOjOm]

Gazrok, killing life is stupidity, not saving it. Knowing the difference between the two is very important if LIFE is to continue. Are you alive?

I am alive...last I checked...

As I mentioned...I can appreciate her protest. However, she went too far. She crossed the line from peaceful protest, to traitor, by directly aiding the enemy (it's not even a gray area here...it's direct treason). This is where it changed from being a protest action to preserve life, to a criminal act. And this is why it is stupidity, and not nobility.... I'll bet she feels stupid now though, huh?

I think GeeDubya is closer to being guilty of treason for having attacked iraq without justification,there still is no real evidence to support it,now the whole world has turned against US interests.....
Playing human shield is a selfless act,but stupid,not treason.

She has lack of freedom, that's all...

This makes me proud to be an American. Lets see if we can put even more limits on freedom! I can't wait until our freedoms consist of only going to work and buying assets...

bein a human shield is highly dangerous and you are basicly playing with peoples lives, but i wouldn't go as far callin it treason. Highly stupid yes and im still not sure what she was trying to achieve by putting her life on the line for a person or group,which will end up getting killed anyway

I can't say personally how she feels now. I am only looking at the bigger picture.

I don't think you respect her protest at all, in fact I don't even think you understand what she was protesting. By standing in the face of death in hope of saving the life of others I think she was trying to get people to wake up and stop killing each other!!!! You think she gave a $H!T about politics or the B.S. Rules of War, or that she was acting in favor of anything but trying to save the lives of many even if it meant she had to give up her's in exchange. Cause that is the message I get, and if that is true then "no" she doesn't feel stupid now, and I'll be ya she'd do it again.

Once again, you are missing the message here.
Are you alive Gazrock? Do you know what it means to live instead of just being alive?

Infinite, you are heading in the right direction. What was she trying to achieve?

She wasn't playing with peoples lives, she is willing to sacrifice her own life to show those who still don't GET IT yet. This isn't that hard of a message, and it's important to be able to see it.

What might she lose?
What might she gain?
Was she acting to save life or destroy it?
Who was acting to perseve life or destroy it?

Originally posted by mOjOm
This woman was placing herself in harms way, to preserve life, so why is it that the message is not clear?

Then by your logic, if an American bomb had hit her, the guy who launched that bomb would have been a murderer.
Because she was purposely putting herself in a place where she could have been murdered, this would have made her an accessory.

Why fine her? Send her to jail for conspiring to be an accessory to murder instead.

The selfish cow.

they should have napalmed her.

No, you are still looking for someone to blame for something instead of what is happening.

It's not about the details of who is doing what, it is about what is happening.

Try and see the same event from a 3rd party without any taking sides and without putting legalities in the way, Law is a man made set of rules that are in place because some people can't play nice with others without someone there to punish them.

One group of people, starts attacking another group of people. One person from the attacking side is willing to give up their life for the others, not to take sides with either side, but to show that destorying life is not what we should be doing....

We are not here to destoy each other!!!! Those who have been killed by others who do not understand this do not come back if you kill others in revenge.

Originally posted by mOjOm
No, you are still looking for someone to blame for something instead of what is happening.

Nah. I'm not blaming anyone. And to tall the truth, my post was written tongue in cheek.
But I do feel that this women should pay some sort of debt to her society after physically challenging it.
Morally, I don't see much of a difference between her actions and those of a home grown terrorist. She has physically opposed her country's will and possibly could have endangered the lives of allied servicemen with her actions.
Wether or not the war itself was justified is not an issue to me here. Once war was declared, her actions made her a traitor.

The only way I would have forgiven her was if she had stayed in Iraq instead of running back home to her comfortable apple pie life in the US, once she realised that nobody was calling her a hero.

Originally posted by JustAnotherHologram

What do we do when our government ceases to consider public opinion?

lol poor thing.


the goverment stopped considering public opinion LONG before bush even though of running for president let alone BEEN president.


tsk tsk!


but onto the topic at hand....

anyone can protest but if there are laws and sanctions in place and she violated them she has to pay.

sucks to be her.

Playing human shield is a selfless act,but stupid,not treason.

I'll clarify.

Treason is aiding the enemy, is it not?

Becoming a human shield in front of a target, as a US citizen, helps ensure that the target (and since Saddam could deploy them wherever he wished, certainly it would be a military target) may not be hit, thus, it is a countermeasure against our military. This is aiding the enemy, is it not?

Therefore, she has committed treason. As I said, this is not even a grey area....this is cut and dry treason.

Voluntarily putting yourself in harm's way is stupid, is it not? Especially when you are putting yourself in harm's way to protect a military target? (as I mentioned, once over there, Saddam controlled their movements, and is well known for placing military targets within civilian areas).

Therefore, she was stupid, as well as treasonous....

If you stop trying to decide between Iraq and U.S. as who is right and wrong with law or politics and just look at the situation for what it is things are much more clear.

Don't think of it as being agaist U.S. and for Iraq. Or For U.S. and agaist Iraq. Or either set of policies set up by either government. All that stuff is just their to confuse what is really happening. Either you support the killing of others, or you support freedom to live. You can't support both, and to confuse the issue with motives or politics or laws isn't going to help answer it. It will just make it harder to see the difference between the two.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

Originally posted by mOjOm
If you stop trying to decide between Iraq and U.S. as who is right and wrong with law or politics and just look at the situation for what it is things are much more clear.

Don't think of it as being agaist U.S. and for Iraq. Or For U.S. and agaist Iraq. Or either set of policies set up by either government. All that stuff is just their to confuse what is really happening. Either you support the killing of others, or you support freedom to live. You can't support both, and to confuse the issue with motives or politics or laws isn't going to help answer it. It will just make it harder to see the difference between the two.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

sure.
I support the killing of stupid women that have nothing better to acomplish then making herself bomb fodder.
flat out.
since being a right winger these days means you're a blood thirsty american, i might as well play the part.
should have napalmed them all, nuked them to glass, then vx gassed them all to make sure.
colonel?

Originally posted by mOjOm
Don't think of it as being agaist U.S. and for Iraq. Or For U.S. and agaist Iraq. Or either set of policies set up by either government. All that stuff is just their to confuse what is really happening. Either you support the killing of others, or you support freedom to live.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

I do. But it's a lot simpler than that in my eyes. You're confusing the issue with trying to blend it in with a justification of the war.
My point is, that even if the war wasn't justified, this women broke the moral code of the majority.

If she were an Iraqi and had gone to Washington and chained herself to the railings outside of the White House with a placard saying "Saddam Must Go", do you think she would have got a warm reception when she returned to Baghdad?

No matter if the war was right or wrong. If anything, the very confusion that you are complaining about is created by people like this. If she had stayed at home we wouldn't have had to debate and make our minds up about her and it would have been one less issue that wouldn't have clouded the water.

As to your final sentence. That's very narrow minded and devisive.
I support the right to life. But when it's him or me, I know what I want the outcome to be.

[Edited on 11-8-2003 by Leveller]