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Friday, 31 Mar 2006
Ok, concerning this, I will be trying really hard to keep my mouth shut until she leaves Iraq and heads back to the US. I am willing to say that she said what she said because she had a gun to her head, and had to say whatever was necessary to get out. I will give her a break to collect her thoughts, relax and figure her stuff out, and see what she has to say. But honestly, if she turns out being another Giuliana Sgrena or Susanne Osthoff, I swear by all the gods in heaven that I will not join a single campaign to free a single person, especially a journalist, kidnapped in Iraq ever again, especially ones who are sympathethic to the Jihadis. Actually, when it’s another one that is sympathethic to the jihadis, I will do a “Thank-god-another-idiot-is-down” sandmonkey dance, and actively demand, advocate and call for their execution by the terrorists, because we don’t need any more idiots in this world.
But I guess that will have to wait until we hear what she will say after she leaves Iraq for that, now won’t we? I am really hoping it doesn’t come to that, and that the worry I had for this girl wasn’t just wasted and was actually another chance to give the Jihaids and CAIR a PR festival.
Yes, it’s better to wait on that one!
March 31st, 2006 at 12:13 pm
The merciful Mujahedeen catch and release fishing program is in high gear. They landed a big one, tagged her and threw her back to catch another day with Jill Carroll.
I will be the first to apologize if her story changes, but at this time think I’m safe and sound … just like Jill says she was with her
kidnapping killersmerciful Mujahedeen.March 31st, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Oh and the boys at CAIR are licking their wounds. They could use some good press about now.
March 31st, 2006 at 12:55 pm
It’s called Stockholm Syndrome
March 31st, 2006 at 1:07 pm
started dancing yet?
March 31st, 2006 at 1:41 pm
I Dare her to start wandering around Iraq again.
March 31st, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Before I read the statement she issued I had a feeling about this. So many other people have been kidnapped before her and were killed. Yet…well if I turn out to be wrong i’ll eat a waterbug.
March 31st, 2006 at 2:06 pm
That’s why the Darwin’s Awards exist.
March 31st, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Nice post, Sandmonkey. The ratio of rant to reason was perfect.
I’m withholding judgement for now as well but things don’t look good.
March 31st, 2006 at 4:39 pm
I read today in Yahoo News that Jill Carroll was threatened before her release. I realize this is a cynical world and that we ought be suspicious but come on…this woman has been held prisioner for three months and now reports are that the terrorists threatened to get her, even after releasing her. Check out the story yourselves, Report: Carroll Threatened Before Release
Maybe it will end up being another Susanne Osthoff situation but in the meantime I think the world should give her the benefit of the doubt.
March 31st, 2006 at 4:58 pm
Any journalist in Iraq that is not sympathetic is killed. She would not be breathing if she was pro America and called the terrorists, terrorists.
And people wonder why the MSM is so slanted.
March 31st, 2006 at 5:11 pm
From the news:
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.
I sure as hell would.
March 31st, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Yeah, overall I’m a really cranky American, but I’m going to give her a few months (like I gave Hamas, you know?). I like to think I’d be one way, but being honest with myself I hate to think what I’d say into a camera with some guys holding guns on me. It could be Stockholm, it could just be I’d-like-to-get-out-of-here-alive-so-I’ll-say-this-and-deal-later-if-I-live.
Not to mention we’ve already had the same thing happen to members of the US military - if I can cut my main men some slack, I can cut Miss Carroll some slack.
For now.
March 31st, 2006 at 6:25 pm
When Sabine Dardenne, the young girl held captive and molested by Marc Dutroux, was released, she actually thanked Dutroux. He had convinced her that he held her captive to protect her from a worse fate(!). I cannot imagine what Jill has been through and what being held hostage does to a person, emotionally and psycologically and so I’m not going to judge her.
March 31st, 2006 at 8:42 pm
OK … this women was shot at, dragged from her car by armed strangers, and kept in a dark room for 82 days. I’m damned surprised she is able to put coherent sentences together right now.
Give her at least the same amount of time in the US with her family and see how she’s doing and what she’s saying.
March 31st, 2006 at 9:02 pm
The same people are saying Carroll is “courageous” and “had a gun to her head” to say the things she said.
Those positions are mutually exclusive.
I’ve been tough on her because I’ve seen these journalist “kidnappings” turn out to be PR stunts by jihady symps too many times. If Carroll comes back to the U.S. and changes her story it merely proves she knows how to play to a particular audience. “Courage” is not the word which comes to mind.
March 31st, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Damn, you and the rest of the neo-con blogosphere are just always ready to pounce on anyone you can call a “traitor.” Sad, but typical.
I don’t think any of you can even begin to imagine what this courageous reporter has been through.
>>The night before journalist Jill Carroll’s release, her captors said they had one final demand as the price of her freedom: She would have to make a video praising her captors and attacking the United States, according to Jim Carroll.
In a long phone conversation with his daughter on Friday, Mr. Carroll says that Jill was “under her captor’s control.”
March 31st, 2006 at 10:53 pm
Link to the above excerpt: http://www.csmonitor.com/earlyed/earlyWO0331a.html
March 31st, 2006 at 11:37 pm
Sandmonkey, remember the two smiling Italian Simona’s, too.
April 1st, 2006 at 5:54 am
I’m So sorry guys you are puzzled that the mujahideen treated her nicely.
let me give you a clue, in Islam having an enemy doesn’t mean you humiliate them(like the BRAVE US & BRITISH troops do).
April 1st, 2006 at 5:55 am
Ayza Chip,
You said
“I’ve been tough on her because I’ve seen these journalist “kidnappings” turn out to be PR stunts by jihady symps too many times. If Carroll comes back to the U.S. and changes her story it merely proves she knows how to play to a particular audience. “Courage” is not the word which comes to mind. ”
Dang, man, I can honestly tell you and the world I’d be pissin’ my pants if I was in the same situation. I don’t know what happened to her or between her and the kidnappers but I’d do ANYTHING to get outta that situation alive.
I have this problem where I can imagine walking in other people’s moccasins … empathy I think it’s called. It don’t make me right and it don’t make me wrong. It just makes life more complicated than BLACK/WHITE.
April 1st, 2006 at 5:59 am
Stockholm Syndrome, haha !!
nice fancy term, now she’s a psycho, right ?
April 1st, 2006 at 6:07 am
I feel bad, I judged her wrongly.
She WAS forced to make those statements under duress to earn her freedom and kidnapp experts state she was right to do it.
Who here would not do the exact same in her position!
Glad she is back, and glad she is a hero again.
When she is home and safe, I hope she tears the jihadists a new one.
April 1st, 2006 at 6:28 am
If I’m ever kidnapped & my life is threatened if I don’t say a few words you bet I’ll say them. If my attackers are stupid enough to think making me repeat something is the same as making me believe it then I have no problem with making use of their stupidity to get out alive.
To some people it might seem brave to refuse to submit & get slaughtered. I am not one of those people. I respect survivors. And no verbal declaration of any type is worth a human life.
April 1st, 2006 at 11:47 am
Blah, blah, blah.
Hopefully, she won’t comment on a damn thing just to piss you people off. I hope we never know the REAL story. I hope she doesn’t feel obliged to give ANY public account of what happened or what her thoughts about it are. Wouldn’t that be the splinter in the mind’s eye for the blogosphere? I don’t think people would be able to stand the anticipation… so let the rumors fly.
April 1st, 2006 at 3:01 pm
If she does not speak out against her own video, should she get “enemy combatent” status?
April 1st, 2006 at 3:03 pm
…”Let me give you a clue, in Islam having an enemy doesn’t mean you humiliate them(like the BRAVE US & BRITISH troops do).”….
Not really, they just behead them. Strictly business.
April 1st, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Something fishy about hostage Jill Carroll
Is it just me or is there something fishy about Jill Carroll? No one in captivity that long could be in a very good mental state soon after being released. And it is normal to identify with your captors in a situation like hers, it’s called …
April 1st, 2006 at 3:33 pm
[...] Jill Carroll Iraq’s Jane Fonda? [UPDATED] Jill Carroll: Hostage or House Guest [link] Trackback URL for this post:http://alabamawatch.com/2006/04/01/something-fishy-about-hostage-jill-carroll/trackback/ [...]
April 1st, 2006 at 4:44 pm
I think those who are so ready to condemn Jill need to give her a break and some space. If she says the same thing while in the safety of the U.S. then that is another thing, but right now I see her words as a survivor’s tactic. If I were in her position, I would have done exactly the same thing (and apologized later for my lies).
Someone said that she refused military transport out of the country, but I just watched a news clip of her arrival in Germany on a military transport plane. She also appeared to be very friendly with the military personal who greeted her. My suspicions are that those military personnel are not holding anything she said about them against her because they too may have done the same thing.
April 1st, 2006 at 8:37 pm
The jury is still out … but this is what the ME will see about this whole ordeal … end of story (in the ME).
Kidnapped US journalist says captors treated her well
Yes … “The merciful Mujahedeen”
April 1st, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Okay, it would appear I was W R O N G about Jill Carroll. Let me say it again:
I WAS W R O N G! It looks like her old articles were the basis of my thinking. It appears her attiude has been forcefully adjusted.
So, once again, it appears i was W R O N G,
And, I am damn glad for it.
April 1st, 2006 at 10:53 pm
Well, it is official. She is disavowing the statements she made:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/carroll;_ylt=AkVM4wypVqwgQkPtskAmcsys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ–
April 2nd, 2006 at 4:52 am
Alabama, it’s just you