Is there a specifically Sunni word for “peace offering”? Because if there is, I suspect that’s what the release of Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll might well be.
Others theorize that her release might have to do with the successful rescue last week of the Christian peace activist trio, but that doesn’t work so well for me. Those ingrates worthies were being held for ransom, which is a sadly all-too-common tactic these days among the more lawless set in the Land Between Two Rivers. Criminal kidnap gangs are rampant in the capital, and there’s no good reason to believe that one group of thugs would be intimidated by another group’s failure to hold on to their purses.
The release conditions set by Carroll’s captors on the other hand had much more to do with ideological nationalism and Sunni notions of “honor.” Keeping her captive, absent an American willingness to negotiate terms, was a liability: Her kidnapping was rather too closely tied into a missed interview at Sunni politician, and Iraqi Islamic Party member Adnan Dulaimi’s office. Her release today – curiously enough at the offices of that same Iraqi Islamic Party in a western Baghdad neighborhood – ended nearly three months of captivity. Carroll notes that she was treated “very well” and that it was “important people knew that.”
The translator who was with her when she was kidnapped could not be reached for comment.
No, if anything led to her release, I suspect it is the growing realization among the minority Sunni nationalist faction – in a background of increased tit-for-tat sectarian violence following last month’s Golden Mosque bombing – that goading the majority Shia into civil war is probably a non-winning strategy. They probably also now recognize, distasteful as it must seem, that the US military is all that stands between themselves and an increasingly agitated coalition of bloody-minded Shia militias. Finally, if you’re looking for recent news to inspire Carroll’s release, I’d look instead to the most recent raid by Iraqi Army-led, US-supported forces on one of Moqtada Sadr’s Mahdi militia headquarters. This raid, despite the carefully crafted howls of indignation from all the usual suspects, demonstrated that the Iraqi Army at least, as well as their US support elements, can be trusted to hew to a non-sectarian line. That they are, in other words, someone you can do business with, if you want to live. Hence the olive branch.
I hope they haven’t waited too long to come to these realizations.
“The translator…” thing might be a bit too obscure. Flat out, he was killed.
While I agree with others who say that she was probably speaking to reassure family and friends that she was not physically injured, threatening her with death and doing whatever they did to make her cry while she was taping her plea (and, oh yeah, killing her translator in front of her) does not add up to “treated very well.”
Her prior TV appearances in front of three masked and armed men; does not compute with her public statements today. In my SWAT days we were always alert for unusual actions on the part of hostages who may be suffering the effect of “Stockholm Syndrome.” We may have seen a little of that today.
Lest We Forget:
Allan Enwiya
I heard on the TV the other night Jill Carroll insisting that her captors treated her well, really well. Let us not forget that others who were with her that day she was captured were not treated so well. As Michelle Malikin states JILL CARROLL was FREED but Allan Enwiya wasn’t, was he? He got gunned down.
I don’t think it was a peace offering. It was business transaction. They either decided to move on, or they got cash from the CSM…….
I live in Jill Carroll’s home town (the People’s Republic of Ann Arbor) and it has been all over the news here since she was taken. I was glad to see her released unharmed because I didn’t think it would end well.
That being said, when I heard the interviews with her last night I was rather appalled. She had already called her folks and let them know she was OK, so I don’t understand her statements – were the videos of her looking tense and crying staged? Does she know that her translator was shot dead? What the hell???
I’m just waiting for the next statement from her blaming the US for setting up the conditions for her kidnapping (or maybe we should just call it an unscheduled vacation).
Geez, between her and the ungrateful rescuees last week sometimes I wonder if we’re breathing the same air.
I’m with Bomber Guy on this… I think we’re seeing at least a touch of Stockholm Syndrome. I heard a Middle East expert on the radio last night who pointed out that it’ll be interesting to see if there is any difference between her reporting on the war before and after her kidnapping.
I agree with Skippy on this..this was a completed transaction ala the “Sopranos”. To ascribe larger intentions is premature at best.
IMHO, from what I have read/seen, Ms. carroll is a graduate of UMASS (Amherst, MA) who went to Iraq with an agenda (at minimum preconceived notions). I’ll bet her first purchase upon arriving there was that Burka-like veiled outfit she wears as she “journalists”..even before she was taken for ransom.
As far as your theory is concerned Lex, I do hope you are right. Anything to end the madness.
B2
Gents,
I read everything I could find under her byline when she was kidnapped. She didn’t have an axe to grind with the US, and she wasn’t as naive as she looks, although she was probably far too optimistic about human nature.
The tape we’ve seen was made while she was still in captivity, likely with guns at her head. I give it no credence. That she still wears hijab after release–gimme a break, I wouldn’t trust anyone, anywhere in IZ after her experience. She’s going to play the game until she gets out of there. She also has friends in Baghdad, and knows they can be capped if she talks too freely. Give her time, and accept that if she ever tells the whole story about what happened to her, it will be classified.
Olive branch? Don’t think so. They were either payed off or lost interest. These people only understand force and violence and if they had an olive branch they would use it to whip us.