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| Belgian Doctors Bill U.S. for Treating Iraqi Girl |
| 2005-04-30 |
| Hat tip to OpinionJournal. It's a Reuters article... Belgian doctors sent an Iraqi girl home on Thursday after treating her for leg wounds caused by a bomb during the U.S. invasion, and sent the 51,570 euro ($66,650) bill to the U.S. embassy. "We haven't heard from them yet," said Bert De Belder, coordinator of the humanitarian agency Medical Aid for Third World which brought the girl to Belgium. "I'm curious to know their reaction," he told Reuters. "We're giving them 10 days to respond. I don't think they will pay it." The girl, 15-year-old Hiba Kassim, smiled to reporters as she waited for her flight to Jordan to meet her father. "Thank you, Belgium," she said. Doctors brought Kassim to Belgium last year to try to save her left ankle, seriously injured by a cluster bomb that also killed her brother in Baghdad in 2003. After five operations and weeks of physiotherapy, Kassim is able to walk again, but with a slight limp. De Belder said he sent the bill to the U.S. embassy because international law dictated that an occupying force was responsible for the well-being of the country's people. U.S. embassy officials were not immediately available for comment. |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #11 I think we should bill the Belgians and all other appeaser-dhimmi tribes for the damage caused on 9-11 and for the expenses incurred in the suppression of terrorism before and since. Without the predictable demands for appeasement and surrender, the terrorists would have no incentive to continue their outrages or, indeed, to have started them in the first place. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2005-04-30 10:22:26 PM |
| #10 And yes, they should be used with the deployable ice-pick module against Trotskite Internationalists. |
| Posted by: Red Barbie 2005-04-30 3:15:27 PM |
| #9 Them Cluster Bombs will kill you extra dead so they should be banned unless they're needed to fight colonialist exploiters or right deviationists wrecking centres. |
| Posted by: Red Barbie 2005-04-30 3:14:17 PM |
| #8 The US Embassy should send a short note. ESAD commie. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet 0’ Doom 2005-04-30 12:18:51 PM |
| #7 I stand corrected. Apparently we did use cluster bombs against some military targets that posed imminent threat to our forces (artillery positions, etc.) and were embedded in civilian areas. But in most of the accounts I read, the civilian casualties were from later exposure to the unexploded bomblets. |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-04-30 12:03:00 PM |
| #6 "...injured by a cluster bomb that also killed her brother in Baghdad in 2003..." Skeptical. Where in Baghdad would we have used cluster bombs? Here's the perspective of "Medical Aid for Third World": http://www.livejournal.com/community/guerillanews/196934.html |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-04-30 11:48:30 AM |
| #5 I think we should pay it - but make a big international scheme - big press conference, over sized check with the goal of making sure that the obvious message is that *we* are the generous ones and belgium are the scrooges. And make sure that this Doctor's name is very prominent. In fact make the check out to the girl so that she can pay her 'humanitarian' doctors. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-04-30 10:52:09 AM |
| #4 "Nuts" -- that's great -- email that one to the US Embassy. Interesting that Rooters plays up the gratitude angle ("Thank you, Belgium") without detecting any irony. |
| Posted by: Matt 2005-04-30 10:34:36 AM |
| #3 I’m curious to know their reaction," he told Reuters. Nuts! |
| Posted by: Gen. Anthony McAuliffe 2005-04-30 10:29:40 AM |
| #2 "Medical Aid for Third World" is a humanitarian agency roughly in the sense that Comintern was. Here's a photo of the kindly doctor De Belder wearing his Che t-shirt and bad-mouthing our country and the UK. |
| Posted by: Matt 2005-04-30 9:52:14 AM |
| #1 Send the doctors a note that we just deducted their share from the bill prepaid without interest in the butchery at Malmedy and Bastogne. |
| Posted by: Phavitch Phaviting2667 2005-04-30 9:49:29 AM |