During the Vietnam Conflict people actually set themselves on fire

[Bandit]

as a protest to the killing. Buddhist Monks literally set themselves ablaze and died in Protest. I think that is in a sense what the suicide bombers are doing but because they are killing others as well their message is lost. I guess people just don't care as much any more. After all the killing is way over there somewhere. :shrug: I wonder if a person were to sit down in front of the Whitehouse and pour gasoline over themselves and set themselves ablaze if the MSM would even comment on it.

[radio4progressives]

1. There was someone who poured gasoline overthemselves

i think it was at the beginning of the war, if memory serves.. it got very little media coverage, though.

[babylonsister]

3. Yes: Father torches van after news of son's death

Father torches van after news of son's death

Thursday, August 26, 2004 Posted: 12:56 AM EDT (0456 GMT)


(CNN) -- After being informed that his 20-year-old son was killed while serving in Iraq, a Florida man doused a U.S. government van with gasoline and set it on fire while sitting inside.

Carlos Arredondo, 44, was severely burned and rushed to Hollywood Regional Hospital in Florida after learning that Pfc. Alexander Arredondo had died, police said.

"He suffered serious burns," said Detective Carlos Negron.

Negron said the young man was killed in Iraq Tuesday.

Melida Arredondo told CNN-affiliate WFOR, "My husband did not take the news well."

The events started around 2:15 p.m. when three Marine casualty officers arrived at the home to inform the Arredondo family of the death.

more...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/08/25/father.ablaze/

[acmejack]

4. He set himself on fire at Whitehouse gate

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6494926/

[sabbat hunter]

2. not the same at all

the suicide bombers are terrorists brainwashed into thinking they are going to heaven for killing infidels and care nothing about human suffering or killing. they go into areas to take out as many civilians as possible.

the buddhist monks were pacificts protesting a war.

how can you possibly equate the two?

[yodermon]

5. It happens, but the corp media ignores it.

This happened here in Charlotte a year or so ago.
http://www.phattuvietnam.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=704

Buddhist monk burns himself to death at temple. Followers say act was a protest by man who wrote out final wishes
ROBERT F. MOORE
Staff Writer of Charlotte Observer

A Vietnamese monk, who had written his final wishes on a paper scroll, doused himself with gasoline and then burned himself to death as he kneeled in front of a Buddhist statue at a temple in east Charlotte Wednesday.

Followers said Thich Chan Hy, 74, committed an act of self-immolation, a form of protest that first gained worldwide attention in Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, a monk set himself on fire on a Saigon street to object to the oppression of Buddhism by the South Vietnamese government. The 1963 image became an antiwar symbol.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police and officials at Lien Hoa, the temple off The Plaza, said that Wednesday morning's incident was the first of its kind in the city.

It unfolded about 5:30 a.m., when one of three people sleeping in a house a few feet from the prayer hall felt a draft. The man got up and noticed a sliding door was open. He looked outside and saw flames, not realizing one of the temple's spiritual advisers was in the middle of the blaze.
<snip>

No link to orig. Char. Observer article.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. That's amazing. I live in Raleigh and never heard a thing about it.

Of course, a year ago it was all Natalee Holloway all the time, wasn't it?

[ROakes1019]

6. monk ablaze

I remember vividly the large photo on the front page of the paper of the monk sitting stoically as he burned to death. It was so shocking, along with the color footage of the battles in Vietnam, because we had never before seen actual photos of such acts. Because of its impact, it stays in my memory today as one of the horrors of war. It also may have been one of the things that turned me so against the war. Actually, there is little difference between this monk's protest and suicide bombers, the only difference being that suicide bombers take out opponants. But the monk's act could hardly be called non-violent protest, could it?

[DinahMoeHum]

7. ". . .another monk barbecue show. . ."

is how Madame Nhu (in-law of Ngo Dinh Diem and aka the "Dragon Lady" of Vietnam) called self-immolation back in 1963.

I suspect Barbara Bush and Ann Coulter would say the same thing.


:evilfrown:

[sweetheart]

8. are you not "on fire"?

oh suffering, the painful thing it is,
buddhist monk sees a world afire with attachment to desire,
and after all the flames and the pains of his,
detached awake serentiy, burning body in the fire.
how joyful to be free,
crumbling earthy monument inspire
Is he nonviolent that intensity,
to burn it all away fanning flames of fire.