The Christian Science Monitor says she was forced to make the propaganda video. Color me unsurprised.
CAIRO – 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.”Ms. Carroll had been their captive for three months and even the smallest details of her life – what she ate and when, what she wore, when she could speak – were at her captors’ whim. They had murdered her friend and colleague Allan Enwiya, “she had been taught to fear them,” he says. And before making one last video the day before her release, she was told that they had already killed another American hostage.
Seems like Jonah Goldberg needs to STFU about Carroll. I cannot tell you how annoyed their slander is making me. Because gee, Jonah knows what Carroll should be saying.
But Jill Carroll is increasingly starting to bug me. The details are still murky and it’s hard to appreciate what she’s been through. And maybe JPod’s right about Stockholm syndrome. And maybe the media’s selectively choosing what to show of her statements. But it would be nice to hear her say something remotely critical of her captors, particularly about the fact that they murdered her translator in cold blood. I’m very glad she’s alive, but I’m getting a very bad vibe. More, no doubt, to come.
That “bad vibe” he was writing about at one a.m.? Well, I’d already read enough several hours earlier to have seen my b.s. detector go off and write the post that’s dated this morning at 7:30 (scheduling function of WordPress).
Yes, more to come. How about waiting for the facts to come in before accusing the woman of being a traitor to her country? I really hate it when bloggers do this, and I hadn’t realized that Goldberg did it first, and the echo chamber effect kicked in.
If Goldberg had waited, perhaps he could have read this:
In making their last video, Mr. Carroll says her captors “obviously wanted maximum propaganda value in the US. After listening to them for three months she already knew exactly what they wanted her to say, so she gave it to them with appropriate acting to make it look convincing.”
Jill Carroll will undoubtedly speak for herself once she’s had time to recover from her ordeal and spend time with her family. But her friends and colleagues say she made it clear that she’s no friend to those who kidnap or harm civilians.
Those who encountered Carroll in a professional context repeatedly praised her fairness and compassion, as demonstrated by some of the thousands of letters the Monitor has received in her support.
“Her professionalism and objectivity were unparalleled within the media community,” Capt. Patrick Kerr, a Marine public affairs officer who got to know Carroll last December, when she spent a month with a Marine unit in Western Iraq, said in an e-mail. “I saw her in Husaybah, on the Syrian border, in early December shortly before I returned to the States. Aside from being very personable and down-to-earth, what really struck me was Jill’s bravery. She seemed to fit right in with the marines and Iraqi security forces,” he wrote in January.
For God’s sake, the woman was kidnapped at gunpoint, saw her translator shot, and spent 82 days in captivity in fear for her life. You can’t wait one effing day to see if maybe, just maybe, she was making the latest video under duress?
Shame on you, Jonah. And shame on all the bloggers accusing Jill Carroll of being pro-terrorist. Let’s wait to hear from her about that anti-U.S. propaganda video, shall we?
She writes for the CSM so she probably is pro-terrorist, but I agree with Meryl that her post liberation pronouncements should not be the only evidence of that.
Pingback: A Newer World
Way to be non-judgmental, J. Lichty.
Puh-leeze.
People have a right to be sceptical about Carroll’s motives, given the rag she chooses to make a career with. Meryl, have you seen yesterday’s POS editorial from the Monitor?
Money quote:
Commentary > The Monitor’s View
from the March 30, 2006 edition
Mo’ Money Quote:
Carroll chose to make a career with the culture that produces crap like that.
And again, explain to me how that proves that Jill Carroll sides with the terrorists?
For God’s sake, the woman just got out of nearly three months of captivity. She was clearly under duress in the first two videotapes.
Open your eyes. Or at the very least, wait until the facts come in, because right now, you have no idea of the words I am holding back from using in an attemp to describe how much I loathe that kind of ignorance.
It doesn’t prove she sides with terrorists, but to me, at least, her decision to represent an organization that soft-pedals the worst of Palestinian Arab terrorism and ideology tells me alot. I’m not saying Goldberg and others aren’t jumping to conclusion. What I am saying is that it’s fair to be sceptical about her motives and attitudes, and I am. Sure she needs time to decompress. I’m not disputing you on that, Meryl.
Am I being ignorant?
Again, look at her fellow-travelers, those Christian leftist terror-enablers who were recently ‘abducted’ and then released. Tell me you don’t believe they weren’t at least somewhat complicit in their walk on the Jihadi side.
Pingback: Don Surber
A statement made under duress should not be held against anyone. Obviously the statement was not made of her own free will.
And because she works for the CSM she’s no good–you should see some of the people I’ve worked for.
I don’t believe they were at least somewhat complicit in their walk on the Jihadi side.
Our host complains about jumping to conclusions. So you try guilt by association, with the guilt of the associates being based on … another jumped conclusion.
Jill Carroll had nothing to do with that group. She was there as a reporter for the CSM. Once again, show me how that proves she is pro-terrorist.
Hmmm. I don’t see Goldberg being overly critical at all. He makes some good points, and this “propoganda video” stuff isn’t really relevant, since she’s been released and can say what she wants.
I’ll wait and see, though that means I haven’t jumped on the “poor Jill!” bandwagon, particularly after the latest round of “Christian activists” released.
It proves nothing but with us threatened physically 24/7, in the short run by the terrorists, and in the long run by their propaganda and gullibility for taqyia by western audiences we choose guilty until proven innocent.
At least that positions us for fewer unpleasant surprises.
In how many months did we have first the Italian job and then the German one, and now possibly the CSM one?
Not to forget those three “religious” adherents to ISM who were rescued after their Brit compatriot was murdered in Iraq. Why? Cause they did not have the funding that the Italians, the Germans and possibly CSM have?
What can one believe from all this? That they were all misled by innocent stupidity to get a story or that in their partisan approach they misread the intent of the “victims”?
Pingback: A Blog For All
Once again, you have absolutely zero evidence that Jill Carroll sides with the terrorists. Until you do, stop slapping the wall with as much mud as you can to see if any sticks.
Meryl we don’t often agree, but you’re so spot on with this post. A little restraint goes a long way and I’d like to see what big, bad, brave Jonah would have done if he was making statements with Sunni guards still breathing down his neck. Is it too much to ask for a little restraint until the facts come out? Jonah’s eagerness to turn this into a bloodbath is just plain creepy.
Thank you for writing this. It gives me hope that humanity still lives in the right hemisphere of Blogtopia.
She’s a freelance reporter who got paid by CSM, among others, for reporting from Iraq. It’s a gig from a paper with journalistic standards. What the editorial board chooses to write on any given day — and whether that matches your point of view — has nothing to do with the quality of the hard-news reporting and reporters.
Pingback: The Moderate Voice
My MArch 30 post
There’s far more to freedom than not being blown up, beheaded, or kidnapped and held hostage for more than three months in a basement, but in the Middle East, that seems like a really good place to start. We’ll take it!
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/03/30/carroll/index.html
Jill Carroll was released today by her captors. They should be nominated for a good citizen award and be given the key to the city, or so they aspire. We’re extremely glad for her release.
She had only good things to say about her captors. By the way, never put too much stock in the comments made by just-released kidnap victims. Remember Patty Hearst and the Smart girl. When your very survival moment by moment depends on the whims of a controlling captor, you tend to want to think the best about their character. :-]
Aside from the fact that they kidnapped her, murdered her interpreter in cold blood, and threatened her life before the world while they kept her locked alone in a room for three months, they seem like reasonably decent fellows. :-| Their mothers should paste a gold star on their square on the front of the refrigerator. Here ya go, Abduhl! Wooooo!
Jill Carroll was released because her captors were convinced she would represent them in the most positve light possible. That is proven by statements they made to the public upon her release.
“Jill Carol, go back in peace to your family and to your country, to tell them and to the American people what you saw and heard during these three months. You are a witness of the events here and we have full confidence in you that you will tell the truth without any falsification.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189584,00.html
She saved her life by convincing them she was sincere, maybe by being sincere about this. Whether this is still what she has to say a month or a year from today, we shall see.
Pingback: In Context