This is Fernando Pereira, a freelance photographer working with Greenpeace. He was killed in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by the French government in 1985:
Days earlier, the crew of the Rainbow Warrior had rescued and relocated the people of Rongelap. The United States government had just detonated the largest nuclear bomb since Hiroshima, and radiation poisoning impacted 95 percent of the villagers.
After a successful evacuation, the ship docked in Auckland, New Zealand to prepare for the second part of its mission: to challenge the French government’s nuclear testing plans on the island of Moruroa.
The Rainbow Warrior never completed that mission. On the night of July 10, the crew awoke just before midnight to an explosion. Before they had time to grasp the situation, a second explosion rocked the boat and the ship immediately began to sink. Following orders to “abandon ship” all but one of the crew made it to safety. Trapped below deck and knocked unconscious by the second blast, Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira drowned.
By dawn, the magnitude of the situation came to light, and an investigation began leading directly to the French government.
Tucker Carlson, in remembrance, calls this deliberate act of sabatoge “vandalism.”
Tucker Carlson says on the air, twice, that he thinks it’s a good thing the French government blew up the Greenpeace ship and killed some of its crew, unprovoked. He then goes on to call this “vandalism” rather than “terrorism.” Greenpeace is, understandably, not pleased.
Get the rest of the story, including the Carlson transcripts, at AMERICAblog. The Greenpeace account of the events may be found here.
via Thomas
UPDATE: More on the story at Majikthise.
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unreal. i never did like his stupid bowties.
i think you could have left out “accused” in your blog title. seems to me that we could straight ahead say “tucker carlson in favor of murderous terrorism.” the new zealanders had a rather different take on the incident. they didn’t like french terrorism in their harbor.
so tuckie. was 911 just bigger vandalism?
The lesson today, folks, is that the members of the right wing noise machine do not actually oppose political violence. They only oppose its use by folks they do not agree with.
This is not only Carlson’s view. Ann Coulter famously said that her only problem with Tim McVeigh was that he didn’t blow up the New York Times building. (When she said that, someone I love worked in that building.)
Once is a lone nut, but twice is a vocal minority. Therefore, we can safely say: a vocal minority of the right wing pundit choir supports the use of terrorist bombing to suppress liberal and progressive political speech.
Tucker is already going to burn in hell for saying that John Edwards made all his money from a hot tub case. What more are you going to do to him?
What a guy. No wonder “The Situation” on some nights is able to beat public access shows where people read from Star Wars novelizations!
Thomas, it’s a lot more than just two.
Chris, of course there are right wingers engaged in actual violence, and of course the right wing pundits refuse to talk about it. But it’s a gift to us when they affirmatively praise right-wing terrorism, because it’s right out there in the open.
I really don’t want to see this Carlson thing go away. I want him sacked as a warning to others of his kind that excusing terrorism will get you canned.
Write to the show, Tucker@msnbc.com, or to the network at GeneralComments@feedback.msnbc.com.
Unusually sheltered people with no social skills just love it when violence happens … to others. I believe it when Carlson doesn’t understand that PEOPLE DIED in the Rainbow Warrior incident. All violence to Tucker is movie-violence because it is always in service of the plot.
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