All morning long, the video of the Christian Science Monitor's stringer Jill Carroll talking of her captivity in Iraq has been playing and replaying on the news nets. She says she never even knew why she was kidnapped.
"They never hit me. They never even threatened to hit me," she said Thursday, wearing a gray Arabic robe.
"I'm just happy to be free. I want to be with my family."
Carroll said she was kept in a furnished room with a window and a shower, but she did not know where she was.
"I felt I was not free. It was difficult because I didn't know what would happen to me," she said.
She said she was allowed to watch TV once and read a newspaper once.
Asked about the circumstances of her release, she said, "I don't know what happened. They just came to me early this morning and said, 'OK, we are letting you go now.'"
But it's not a completely happy ending: Let's not forget that, when she was kidnapped, her translator Allan Enwiya, a businessman and father of two young children, was murdered.
Regardless of the other losses, at least she was not added to them. For that I am thankful!
Posted by: Bill-Muskoka | March 30, 2006 at 04:27 PM
Looks like the right whingers are on the verge of wishing her back into her captor's arms because she had the audacity to say she was "well treated" by them.
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013592.php
It's funny, but as soon as I read this on your blog I knew some right whinger would be crapping on it. Not surprisingly, the second blog I checked yielded what I expected to find. The first didn't, but that's only because Malkin seems to have checked in for her yearly stint at the Betty Ford clinic...er, I mean she's on vacation.
Anyway, it's good to see Jill made it back safe and sound. Maybe she can tell her story to poor, "persecuted by the evil Muslims" Levant.
Posted by: Robert McClelland | March 30, 2006 at 04:55 PM
it leads us back to previous columns on how the reporting is being done - since we know that western visibilty is such a risk...
Posted by: sooey | March 30, 2006 at 05:24 PM
Do I sense Stockholm Syndrome? Certainly a change from the video shown during her captivity and those nice men did kill her translator.
Posted by: fanofzerbisiasnot | March 31, 2006 at 11:44 AM
Expect more of our citizens to be targets with Bush apologist Harper as prime minister -- and even more still if that lightweight, U.S.-supremacist, cheerleader for the Iraq war Michael Ignatieff is -- God forbid -- elected Liberal leader. If that happens it will be one Republican versus another in the Great White North. Sickening.
Posted by: William | March 31, 2006 at 12:35 PM
Now she is out of the Iraq, see what she has to say now!
"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. The people who kidnapped me and murdered Alan Enwiya are criminals, at best. They robbed Alan of his life and devastated his family. They put me, my family and my friends - all those around the world - who have prayed so fervently for my release - through a horrific experience. I was, and remain, deeply angry with the people who did this--------ut let me be clear: I abhor all who kidnap and murder civilians, and my captors are clearly guilty of both crimes."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CARROLL_STATEMENT?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-04-01-16-34-49
Posted by: Stephen Reevess | April 01, 2006 at 07:07 PM
Regarding Michael Ignatieff's read his original articles in the NY Times Magazine concerning the war, before making such sweeping statements.
He supported the war as someone who was there and saw what had happened to Shiites and Kurds. He supported the war because Saddam Hussein was responsible for the murder of 200,000 of his own people and starting a war with Iran that cost 1 million lives. As a human right professor and commentator, there need not be any other justification.
Posted by: Stephen Reevess | April 01, 2006 at 07:11 PM