Still feeling a little creeped out, Jonah? Because Jill Carroll has completely disavowed all the propaganda statements she was forced to make.

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (AP) - Protected by the U.S. military and far from the country where she had been held hostage, Jill Carroll strongly disavowed statements she had made during captivity in Iraq and shortly after her release, saying Saturday she had been repeatedly threatened.

In a video, recorded before she was freed and posted by her captors on an Islamist Web site, Carroll spoke out against the U.S. military presence. But in a statement Saturday, she said the recording was made under threat. Her editor has said three men were pointing guns at her at the time.

“During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video. They told me I would be released if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. So I agreed,” she said in a statement read by her editor in Boston.

“Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not.”

She also recanted what she had said in her first interview, where she said she had been “treated well” and wasn’t threatened.

In the statement, Carroll also disavowed an interview she gave to the party shortly after her release. She said the party had promised her the interview would not be aired “and broke their word.”

“At any rate, fearing retribution from my captors, I did not speak freely. Out of fear, I said I wasn’t threatened. In fact, I was threatened many times,” she said. “Also, at least two false statements about me have been widely aired: One - that I refused to travel and cooperate with the U.S. military, and two - that I refused to discuss my captivity with U.S. officials. Again, neither statement is true.”

In other words, I was completely right in my first post, when I said it looked like Carroll was being coerced. My post was written two hours before Jonah Goldberg — with access to the same information as I — said the following:

MAYBE IT’S JUST ME [Jonah Goldberg]

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.

And now, his apology:

Me: In all sincereity: good for her. I take Carroll at her word and hope nothing but the best for her. I’m sure it was a terrible ordeal and I think, barring some major revelation, this should put an end to the criticism of her. Leave her be. I’m sorry for suggesting that she might have believed what she said. I hope there will be some apologies coming from those who did believe what she said.

It’d look a whole lot better if he hadn’t just written this an hour earlier:

If you go back and read what I’ve posted, I said that Carroll’s statements didn’t scan.

No, Jonah, you out-and-out accused her of siding with the enemy with these words: “it would be nice to hear her say something remotely critical of her captors.”

Classy. Very classy. Gotta love that rush to judgment.

And that goes for my commenters here, too. Have a little crow, with a side dish of apologies, on me.

If you haven’t been listening to my Shire Network News podcasts, this week’s is probably the best week you could start.

I thought of a different approach for the podcast, and ran with it. The subject is the Walt & Mearsheimer Israel Lobby paper, and I have some guest commenters. A few of their names: B. Bunny, D. Duck, and P. Pig.

It’s a good time to start listening to Shire Network News, which is overall an excellent weekly overview of the blogosphere and current events. Plus, well, we’re funnier than the network news, and we don’t mean unintentionally.

AP’s notorious for their editorial love of the Palestinian cause and despise of Israel. But every now and then…

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, also know as Abu Mazen, left, embrasses former South African President Nelson Mandela at Mandela’s residence in Johannesburg, South Africa, Saturday, April 1. 2006. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Embrasses? Is that supposed to be embraces or embarasses?

The Washington Post has an article that gives more details of Jill Carroll’s behavior immediately following her release, and yes, it was duress. Pressure from all around, seemingly.

Jill Carroll wondered from day to day whether she would grow old or die a hostage.

“It was like falling off a cliff for three months, waiting to hit the ground,” the 28-year-old American reporter said Thursday after being released by her kidnappers.

Yeah, that totally sounds like someone who believes in her kidnappers’ cause, and can’t wait to make a propaganda video about them.

Hours later, Carroll’s captors dropped her off in a Baghdad neighborhood, outside an office of the Iraqi Islamic Party. The politicians inside gave her juice, candy, water and tissues.

Composed, Carroll negotiated her way through the first of many politically laden conversations she would have Thursday, trying to stick to what she wanted and didn’t want to say.

The party officials asked her to write out and sign a statement saying she had not been harmed in her brief time at their offices. They had her record a question-and-answer session on camera that they said was for their records. It showed up on television shortly afterward.

Party leader Tariq al-Hashimi presented her with an embossed Koran in a plush box. The Koran was for the true followers of Islam, Hashimi said, and he mentioned the Iraqi people. Accepting it, Carroll said her suffering was nothing compared with theirs.

Now why would the Islamic party want her to sign that statement? Could it be for propaganda purposes? Taking advantage of a woman who was still afraid for her life?

Let me remind you of the quote from the man who presented her with the Koran:

He went on: “She said, ‘I promised the kidnappers not to speak.’ She was a little bit frightened. She was very careful. She didn’t give much information.”

Yes, duress. This woman was not free to speak her mind, and is only now feeling the freedom she was born with, and which she lacked these last three months.

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (AP) - Smiling broadly, journalist Jill Carroll arrived Saturday under U.S. military protection in Germany, the first stop on her return to the United States from Iraq where she was kidnapped and spent 82 days in captivity.

Gone was the Islamic headscarf she had worn as a hostage and she had traded her full-length robe for jeans, a bulky gray sweater, and a desert camouflage jacket.

“I’m happy to be here,” she told Col. Kurt Lohide, the U.S. officer who welcomed her to Ramstein Air Base.

Look at the picture. Quite a difference from the drone or the fearful woman you saw on the videos she was forced to make.

I am waiting to hear from her — in her own words — about why she made the video. I’m pretty sure she’s going to tell us she was threatened.