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2006/3/31-4/3 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:42576 Activity:low 50%like:42573 |
3/31 Questions About Carroll's Captivity: http://csua.org/u/fdv (Washington Post column) (From Washington Post, with citations from NY Times) \_ Not to mention from LGF and NRO. Fuck Howie. \_ The LGF quote is not exactly flattering. I'm not sure what your problem is. \_ He's giving them a voice they don't deserve. Yes, there are questions. It just happened. How 'bout we find answers rather than cloud the discussion with vague and stupid speculations, especially from those who have decided that she's an enemy of the state. Another example of "X says world is flat. Opponents disagree." Fuck Howie. \_ Update: family claims video was made under duress. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060331/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_carroll_2 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060331/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_carroll_2 |
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csua.org/u/fdv -> www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/03/31/BL2006033100473.html More Questions About Carroll's Captivity By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, March 31, 2006; I said goodbye to Bob Woodruff before he went to Iraq and got badly injured by a roadside bomb. In short, death and violence involving the brave journalists who have gone to Iraq is an ever-present part of my beat. And yet, like many people, I was especially floored by the kidnapping of Jill Carroll and greatly relieved by her release yesterday. Reporters for big news organizations, after all, generally travel with security details, while Carroll is a 28-year-old freelancer who went to Baghdad on her own, became a stringer for the Christian Science Monitor and clearly was bent on understanding Iraqi culture. I must say, though, that I found her first interview yesterday rather odd. Carroll seemed bent on giving her captors a positive review, going on about how well they treated her, how they gave her food and let her go to the bathroom. Of course, as we all saw in those chilling videos, they did threaten to kill her. Why make a terrorist group who put her family and friends through a terrible three-month ordeal sound like they were running a low-budget motel chain? Now perhaps this is unfair, for there is much we do not know. We don't know why Carroll was kidnapped and why she was abruptly released. She says she doesn't either, but surely she must have gotten some clues about her abductors' outlook and tactics during her 82-day captivity. Maybe she was just shell-shocked right after being let go. Maybe she won't feel comfortable speaking out until she's back on American soil. As my colleagues in Baghdad point out, when that interview was taped, Carroll was still in the custody of a Sunni political party with ties to the insurgency. It may have just made sense for her to be especially cautious. And they tell me that Carroll did cry -- off camera -- when the subject of her murdered translator came up. Still, people are buzzing because her taped remarks have been played over and over again on television. I hope she'll be able to share a fuller account of her ordeal soon. Despite the happy ending, Carroll's kidnapping has driven home how dangerous Iraq remains for Western journalists, who admit it's getting increasingly difficult to do their jobs, even as they challenge the administration's claims that they are excessively focused on violence and negative news. As CBS's Lara Logan told me in a CNN interview this week, "When journalists are free to move around this country, then they will be free to report on everything that's going on. But as long as you're a prisoner of the terrible security situation here, then that's going to be reflected in your coverage . "You don't think that I haven't been to the US military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let's see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? Oh, sorry, we can't take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they're going to be attacked, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack. Oh, sorry, we can't show this reconstruction project because then that's going to expose it to sabotage. And the last time we had journalists down here, the plant was attacked . I mean, security dominates every single thing that happens in this country." Let's be grateful that Jill Carroll didn't wind up the latest victim. |
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060331/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_carroll_2 AP Report: Carroll Threatened Before Release By MARIAM FAM, Associated Press Writer Fri Mar 31, 10:50 AM ET BAGHDAD, Iraq - Jill Carroll's kidnappers reportedly warned her before her release that she might be killed if she cooperated with the Americans or went to the Green Zone, saying it was infiltrated by insurgents. Click Here The freelance writer for The Christian Science Monitor, who was freed by her captors Thursday and dropped off at a branch office of the Iraqi Islamic Party, was later escorted to the Green Zone by the US military, the newspaper said Friday. Scott Peterson , convinced her it was safe, the newspaper said. The Monitor quoted her family as saying that her kidnappers had warned her against talking to the Americans or going to the Green Zone. They told her it was "infiltrated by the mujahedeen," the newspaper said. In a video purportedly from her kidnappers that was posted on the Internet, her abductors said Carroll was released because "the American government met some of our demands by releasing some of our women from prison." The video was found on an Islamic Web site where such material has appeared before. But US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Thursday there was no connection between the recent release of several female Iraqi detainees and Carroll's freedom. "No US person entered into any arrangements with anyone. By US person I mean the United States mission," he said. "What we did before had no connection with Jill Carroll," Khalilzad said. "We still have a few female detainees -- four -- and that's all I can say on that." The Monitor's editor, Richard Bergenheim, also said no money had been exchanged for Carroll's release. "We simply know she was dropped off at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters," he said. Also on the Internet video, Carroll is shown answering questions, presumably from her captors, and saying that Iraqi insurgents were "only trying to defend their country ... to stop an illegal and dangerous and deadly occupation." "So I think people need to understand in America how difficult life is here for the normal, average Iraqis ... how terrifying it is for most people to live here every day because of the occupation," she said on the video. Bergenheim said Friday that Carroll's parents, who spoke to her about the video, told him it was "conducted under duress." "What emerged was that they actually started filming this tape the night before and then there was a power outage. Jill had been told the questions, asked to translate them from Arabic into English," he told ABC's "Good Morning America." "When you're making a video and having to recite certain things with three men with machine guns standing over you, you're probably going to say exactly what you're told to say," Bergenheim added. The US Embassy spokeswoman in Baghdad declined to comment on the video, saying all queries regarding Carroll were being handled by her family and the Monitor. Iraq's Interior Ministry said it had no information regarding Carroll's departure plans, which an Iraqi official said were being handled by the Americans. Bergenheim said the 28-year-old Carroll is "emotionally fragile" after 82 days in captivity and will begin her journey home as soon as possible. I think they're investigating whether she could leave today," he told NBC's "Today" show. "But her family wants to make sure that she's strong enough, emotionally and otherwise, to take this step." In this photo provided by The Christian Science Monitor, freelance writer Jill Carroll is shown in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, March 30, 2006, shortly after her release after being held for nearly three months as a hostage. Carroll, on assignment for The Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped and her translator, Allan Enwiyah was killed, on Jan. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. |