Jill Carroll=Jessica Lynch???

[ls317]

Falling numbers in the polls? Sinking ship... Canned news story to stop the bloodletting???and spread some feel good about the alleged cause for war?
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/03/30/carroll/index.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Nearly three months after she was abducted in Baghdad, American journalist Jill Carroll walked into the office of a Sunni Arab political party Thursday and asked if she could call the U.S. Embassy, an official with the Iraqi Islamic Party said.

That's how the 28-year-old freelancer emerged unharmed from her ordeal. During that time, she had appeared in videotapes from captors, the Brigades of Vengeance, saying little time was left for the United States to free all of its female prisoners in Iraq or she would be killed.

[MADem]

1. No, because there was no shoot out or rescue, they just dumped her off

at Sunni HQ with a note. It would have been better if there had been a "daring rescue" with American and Iraqi soldiers working side-by-side in a coordinated effort. But no, they opened the car door, and simply kicked her ass to the curb.

Jill's coverage of Iraq doesn't paint the rosy scenarios that BushCo wants to hear. She tells the truth, good, bad, ugly and obvious, and doesn't sugarcoat it at all.

[ls317]

4. Good Point!

But look at who she worked for! She seemed awful calm for the interviews she gave the media. Remember the American employee that was kidnapped and released he was a truck driver from the south.I think he worked for KBR or halibuton.
It took him a few months to speak to the media..
It is rather odd that she looks exactly the same look in regards to her looks....no weight lost.... no stress..she looked well rested as a matter of fact.( IMAO)

[MADem]

7. She's been over there for a long time, she is not a newbie

She spent time in Jordan learning Arabic before she even went in. And she was a freelancer, under contract with CSM. She's covered some rough shit, and my guess is she stayed in journo mode the whole time, just to keep her sanity.

Hostage taking is a longstanding tradition over that way. The sharp hostage taker will beef up their captives, especially if they want to give them back. They want them to appear well-fed. They will also keep them comfortable, not smack them around, or do anything to mark them or give them reason to be terrified. The worst enemy in those sorts of situations are boredom and uncertainty. There's always that chance that you will be the one they execute to make an example out of, but the odds are even that they will let you go. It's luck of the draw...or luck of a ransom.

In fact, the footage I saw of Jill, she looked a bit chunkier than usual.

Who knows if her Dad didn't toss some money at someone who helped out...either that, or someone, somehow, got those guys to call off the dogs. Or it could have been a set-up, by forces unknown, designed to get a straight shooter off the street and cow the journos already there into staying on their balconies? And they always intended to let her go... Ya never know, really.

Jill was/is respected for her fairminded approach to reporting the real issues of the war, and as soon as anyone from either side saw her stuff, they would see that she wasn't a propagandist or an apologist for any side. That said, I'll bet there's some serious rejoicing going on at the crappy journo hotels in Baghdad!

[Garbo 2004]

42. She didn't set out to give "interviews" for the media. She had been

"released" to the Iraqi Islamic Party and was at their HQ when they pulled out a camera and said they wanted to record an interview "for their records," not a TV broadcast. The IIP also supposedly is said to have ties to "insurgents." So, does she "for their records" in the IIP HQ denounce her captors as murderers, etc or play along and hope she eventually gets to a safe secure place?

Then later the IIP plays the video on the TV station it just happens to own. And all we've seen to date is replays of that one video taken under those circumstances at the Iraqi Islamic Party HQ in Baghdad.

[janedoe]

2. I think you've got it right! (n/t)

[ClayZ]

3. Bingo!

[SeattleGirl]

5. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. Why do some people insist on

making anything that might actually BE good into a vast right wing conspiracy? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes something good is just something good.

Yours is the second post I've seen today, suggesting that the Jill Carroll release was a plot by the Bushistas to steer attention away from their abominable actions, but in this instance, I'm sorry. I just don't see it. Sometimes people do get away from a bad situation. Somethings things do come out all right. Just because something does, doesn't mean it's a big fake.

And no, I am NOT one of those folks who buys into the "good news from Iraq" crap just because a school is built. Iraq is a freakin' mess, and most of us know that. But given that, that doesn't mean that all the "good news" is manufactured.

And you know what? Even if it WAS a manufactured released (and I really have a hard time thinking it was), at least this young woman is out of that situation (and no, I don't think she was an undercover CIA agent "captured" to help Bush's poll numbers, as suggested in another thread.)

Come on, folks. You're giving the Bushista's WAY TOO MUCH CREDIT! Yes, they're wiley, and sneaky, and treacherous. But the are NOT infallible. And the really DON'T orchestrate everything that happens everywhere in the world.

[ls317]

6. Points to Ponder

Lets see.. Jessica Lynch had no major value in regards to the war making ability of the US armed forces.She was an E-2( Truck driver) she cant even recall the details of her being taken hostage.. Think back her stories didnt mesh at all based on where you read and what you belived.She never really to this day spoke at length in regards to what exactly happened to her..
Soshauna Johnson ( African American female) was taken hostage also in the same event as Lynch,Johnson spoke in very clear detail of the ordeal she went thru she was beaten and raped while being held as a hostage..
But Lynch gets a tv movie and book deal.....and she was rescued by special ops forces without a shot being fired??( Just something to think about)
And Johnson gets discharged from the army... (no book deal or movie for her)
Canned News....???

[SeattleGirl]

9. Okay, I know that the Jessica Lynch story WAS a canned story

And I also know Jessica was pretty pissed off at being used for the Bush propaganda machine.

The Bushista's do more canning than a traditional farmhouse wife. Absolutely no doubt about it. So I have no dispute with that being the case in many instances. I'm just saying that I don't see it here in the Carroll case, at least not right now. If it DOES turn out to be that way -- a "canned news" rescue, you bet I'll be pissed off. It's just that I don't automatically jump to the conclusion that everything that might remotely be actually "good" is in fact a lie. That's all I'm sayin'.

[ls317]

11. Understand your point of view...

Personally there was more to this story that hopefully will be told( the truth)

[SeattleGirl]

12. i'm open to that possibility.

I'm just saying that I don't just want to jump to the conclusion that anything that might be remotely genuinely good is in actuality a plot by the Bushistas.

Should it turn out to be another freakin' lie and made up "good news" story, you bet I'll be pissed off about it. I'd just rather wait until I know more.

[LostinVA]

18. Excuse me??? Jessica Lynch deserves the Medal of Honor

for refusing to play along with the Bushies' planned propaganda for her. She has NEVER played ball with them, has been very vocal that she was not a hero, that the Iraqis were very nice to her, wrote a book so that she could set up trust funds for Lori's kids (and other children), had Extreme Home Makeover build a new home for Lori's kids and parents, publicly bitched until Shoshanna Johnson got the disability money and medical help she needed, etc. And this kid can barely legally drink! She's a bloody hero.

Yeah, she's such a user that Lori's family has made her a member of their family... and the Hopis have made her a (literal) member of their tribe....

And, YOU ARE SO FRIGGING WRONG!!! Lynch didn't get a movie deal! She had ZIP to do with the damned movie! She refused to cooperate... so they just made stuff up. And, the book deal was for Lori's kids, and other children whose parents died in that fuck up in Iraq.

So, do a little research before you slag Jessica Lynch's integrity again. Because, even though she is not the hero the Bushies made her out to be, her reaction to what they did her has made her into a hero. She's a courageous and noble young woman.

I wonder at your blaming Lynch instead of the real culprits....

And Carroll, too.

[Horse with no Name]

22. Hear Hear

I was getting ready to unleash.
Glad you beat me to it.

[LostinVA]

23. Man! What the heck is going on here lately???

[Horse with no Name]

24. I'm not exactly sure?

May I offer a morning snack of :popcorn:?
Please, here is something to wash it down...

[LostinVA]

29. Why, thank you! That's a perfect way to star--- George Bush is God

God is George Bush... George Bush is God...

[Cocoa]

28. Shoshana Johnson was raped by her captors?

I hadn't heard that.

[LostinVA]

30. She wasn't... or, if so, she has never made that public

Jessica Lynch wasn't, either. Yet more propaganda about those nasty brown men wanting to rape our women!

She also wasn't beaten. None of them were. Technically, most Geneva Conventions riles were adhered to, except for the videotaping of the POWs... kinda like how we taped Saddam and aired it all over the place.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MADem]

10. I think Jill is a journalist, nothing else, just a good journalist

But hey, if someone were to pay a ransom for her release (and the group holding her has a rep for demanding cash--they don't give a shit about any cause but money), now's a good time to do it...ya?

She wouldn't have to be complicit for something like that to happen.

[SeattleGirl]

13. Absolutely, MADem

I was just happy to hear she was free.

[chefgirl]

14. Question everything

I wouldn't exactly call it complicity if she had the shit scared out of her by the US Gov't either.

I have to admit, I didn't once doubt the veracity of this story UNTIL I heard her speak yesterday on camera. She had a very odd tone to her voice, seemed to be hedging a bit, and painting an altogether rosy picture of her captivity.

Can it be that she was very keenly aware that she was still within the reach of her captors and was trying to say what she knew they wanted to hear?
Can it be that she was 'warned' by our own gov't, to tell the story they wanted told, at the cost of possibly not getting out of Iraq?
We really don't know, but those are just two examples in which she wouldn't have to necessarily be complicit.

I completely agree with the previous poster who said "Question Everything". Lets see if her story changes once she's back in the US.

-chef-

[MADem]

38. No, I think she was speaking as a reporter, frankly

Look at other tape of her, she always weighs her words. She knows that words matter, and she is very, very careful to stick to facts, to label impressions as just that, and to be very careful when she speaks. That almost hesitant tone isn't a new thing.

What I saw is that she seemed a bit mentally exhausted, and she looked like she had gained weight from inactivity.

[SeattleGirl]

39. Your post made me think of my mom and my sisters.

Mom was a CNA, as are both my sisters. My mom has been dealing with some serious health issues, and yet they sound very clinical about it, as if they were talking about a patient that was no relation so the family. Doesn't mean my mom isn't worried about her condition, and it doesen't mean my sisters don't love mom to pieces like me and my brothers do. But they have all worked in the medical field for years, and when they talk of medical issues, even when they involve family members, they take on a more professional tone. You may have hit on something there, MADem, where Jill Carroll is concerned.

[MADem]

40. I'll tell ya, she is one tough cookie, a smart young lady

I met her once. Very focused, very professional. She gets a lot of respect from the journos over there who have all the bells and whistles--the staff, the armored car, the body armor, the fancy satellite phones and comm equipment...she had a translator, a chador, the occasional rental/contract car and taxi fare. But she got out and about way more than they ever did.

Gutsy kid. I hope they don't succeed in trashing her. It would be a crime.

[SeattleGirl]

41. There you go, then -- she was talking as one reporter to another

She IS a professional, and falling apart and crying (if that's what she may have felt like doing), probably just isn't her way.

That's cool that you got to meet her. I hope she writes about her time in captivity. It would be a very interesting story to read.

[BR_Parkway]

16. True, but the fact that we've had 2 major hostage releases within

the same 2 week period that the (mis)Administration has been on the propoganda drumbeat of "the media isn't reporting enough good news" does give me a moment's pause to consider IF our gov't would have held those people, pretending to be evildoers to keep the base stirred up while silencing a few critics - and then let them walk away or be found totally abandoned by their captors at this point so they have something to point at and say "hey, look at the good job we're doing here folks".

The saddest part isn't if they did or didn't - it's that I've been pushed to the point of even wondering IF my supposedly representative government did it or not. I'm not even surprised now that I even think they're capable of it, I lost that one a couple years back.

[Mike Daniels]

26. Carroll would have been killed if it had been a right wing operation.

If this had been a right wing "plant" the best outcome for Bush would have been for Carroll to have been found on the roadside dead. This would have allowed the Bush admin. to emphasize the "barbarity" of the enemy and how urgent it was to eradicate every single one of them. And, outside of the most rabid "it's all America's fault" chorus members, an overwhelming majority of the public would have held her kidnappers (not Bush) directly responsible for her fate.

Plain and simple, the terrorists/freedom fighters couldn't kill her because that would have set their cause back into the stone age. That said, I don't buy for a second that her freedom or care during her imprisonment indicates any sort of humanity on the part of her captors. They shot the translator in cold blood so they obviously aren't compassionate or caring by a long shot. They simply knew that they'd lose signifcant amounts of sympathy and support had Carroll been found dead.

Most likely, the abductors felt some heat from certain quarters, someone paid someone off or there was some back alley deal that led to her being released.

[LostinVA]

31. Yup, dead and raped

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

15. No, I don't. Is it possible she was involved in her own abduction to try

to get women prisoners released? That thought has crossed my mind a great deal since she was captured. especially after seeing the video of her in front of that beautiful mural. It seemed picture perfect.

[paul_fromatlanta]

17. Apparently they killer her translator with whom she was friendly

So let's see what she has to say when she is out of Iraq and able to speak freely.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

25. I'm sorry! I forgot about that. Then there was no way that she was

involved. I only get good vibes from her personally.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

34. mercenaries kill without questioning

and that likely is who is behind most of the killing in Iraq-
incuding abduction-
they only answer to the Corporate God who hired them.

[LostinVA]

19. Of course not!

She WAS set up, imo, but by certain Iraqis -- the politician she was supposed to meet was mysteriously not there... her friend was murdered, she was abducted, etc. She is young, but savvy. She knows the MIddle East. The people who captured her appear to not have been as violent as some of the other factions. Just like teh three men just released -- tehre was a bunch of infighting between tehir captors. May have happened here. For many men, regardless of their views, still ahve trouble killing a woman.

Accusing her of this is very, very serious.... and Jill Carroll has a reputation as a person of high integrity.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

27. I had forgotten about her translator being killed and feel terrible about

my post. When writing my post and my thoughts I was contemplating the fact that she would have done it out of altruism.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

37. have you ever got involved in something thinking it was harmless

or seen a movie where someone goes along with something and then finds out the schemers were crazy and end up doing things like killing--they end up doing something not approved of by the person who originally thought it was harmless enough to go along with the scheme?

Anything is possible-
Especially in the lawless land of Iraq.
where might makes right.

Some people will dispose of human life just to help their cause...just to help things along.
And it's not just those terrorist who happen to be Arab-

Remember the beheading video had the same background stripe on the paint job as the Abu Garib prison.
(which was quickly torn down for some strange reason)
The victim (Nick Berg) actually had on one of the same orange jumpsuits used for prisoners at Abu Garib.

Don't assume it's "our" guys who abduct people-
but don't assume it's NOT either.

[KharmaTrain]

20. Carroll Got A Lot Of Attention Others Didn't Get

The CSM was running TV ads and there was a huge word of mouth campaign launched around Baghdad to make sure she was safe and free. Obviously few here have read Jill's reporting or you'd never play this tin foil hat game.

Carroll's kidnapping received a lot of local publicity and not all of it was good. Methinks the group that was holding her saw she was getting more radioactive for them the longer she was their captive...not radioactive in attracting American forces, but in drawing the scorn of whatever militia and/or religious/political group they belong to. The deal with a kidnapping is there's a point where the captors become the captives...when their leverage with the captive doesn't return the money or other result they were looking for. In many cases, the easy way out is to kill the person...but with all the promotion Carroll was getting in Baghdad, if she had been harmed, whichever group responsible would have taken a local PR beating.

Sorry, no wag the dag for junior on this one. We'll save it for when he really does...which he will. Stay tuned.

[Mika]

21. Rando Rhodes was onto it yesterday

- U.S. Risks Reporter's Life to Strike Tough Pose -
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32147

WASHINGTON, Feb 13 (IPS) - The George W. Bush administration went well beyond refusing to negotiate with terrorists in its handling of the threat by freelance journalist Jill Carroll's abductors to kill her if all female detainees were not released from U.S.-run prisons in Iraq.

According to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials delayed the scheduled release of six female prisoners whom they knew had already been found innocent because of the kidnappers' demand for their release. Then they refused to speed up the review of the files of the five remaining female prisoners, in violation of a policy of giving priority to females in the review of detainee files for release.

Had the normal policy been followed, it is very likely that all the women held by the United States would have been released by now. By delaying the releases of female detainees to strike a tough anti-terrorism pose, the administration has increased the risk to Jill Carroll's life.

Carroll's abductors, who threatened on Jan. 17 to kill Carroll if all female detainees were not released by Jan. 20, did not carry out the threat. But they announced a new deadline of Feb. 26 for the release of all the female detainees in a video aired by a Kuwaiti TV station over the weekend.

When the initial deadline was announced by Carroll's abductors, a major release of hundreds of prisoners had already been planned, and Iraqi officials had expected six female detainees to be included among them.

The Iraqi ministries of justice and human rights revealed to reporters that they had reviewed the cases of the six women brought to them and had recommended to U.S. authorities that all six be released on the grounds that there was no solid evidence against them. Apparently the release had originally been scheduled before the deadline announced by Carroll's captors.

"In my opinion, all of them are innocent," said Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim Ali.

The Pentagon, however, at first refused even to comment on the possible release of the women. When the Jan. 20 deadline was aired by the Al Jazeera television network, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter of the Central Command was quoted as saying of the female detainees, "There is no expected resolution of their cases in the near future."

But Reuters reported on Jan. 25 that Iraqi officials "have been at odds with their U.S. counterparts" over the release of the women, and that the Iraqis were suggesting that "the delay in releasing the women was linked to the demands of the kidnappers of Carroll..."

[sendero]

32. I find..

... your premise not realistic.

There was no staged dramatic rescue. The Carroll release will be off the front page, ALREADY.

If she were a man, should probably would have have executed. It is as simple as that.

For that matter, it would have been a better "distraction" if they'd release a dramatic execution tape.

[newspeak]

33. I thought about Jessica Lynch, too

When Jessica refused to lie for the administration and stated that the doctors treated her humanely, she was tar and feathered by the cons. It's like they want them to come back with horrific stories to further their propaganda agenda.

[newspeak]

35. okay, I see I have a different

perception. What I see is that they wanted to broadcast a meme of "Iraqis are bad, Iraqis treat our people inhumanely." Both women, stated that they were treated humanely, and the RW rags start bashing.

[LostinVA]

36. That's what I see, too -- Carroll is being swift boated already

And, I think threads some on DU today are part of it...