Just a coincidence, of course

Though it is worth noting that the Iraqi women were freed after the Carrol deadline had passed.

Whoever took Carrol had better present her alive, or you can be certain that future kidnappings will have zero chance of success.

Nuts to that!!!, D.I.F. The Iraqi women should not have been released!!! Carol trusted the enemy and she paid the price for it. I'm sorry. I really hope that they did not kill her, really I do. But in light of how the Germans did us with Osterhoff or whatever her name is, we should have kept our policy of not "making deals" with terrorists. Deadline passed or not!!! This will only enbolden the terorists. And trust me, there will be more kidnappings after this.
And if Caroll is found alive, there had better be a thorough investigation. With fine tooth combs, microscopes, x-rays. The whole kit-n-kaboodle.

I saw that news tidbit on yahoo but it didn't stay in the LOOK HERE box very long.

WTF was our govenment thinking? It doesn't matter what they say the muslims are now *positive* kidnapping people to get their own way is the answer.

BTW... Did the human shields/"christian" peace niks ever get released? I remember that one very well... about 99% of the posts were "Good, kill them."

There is something not neutral, not innocent, something disturbing, about the Western women who choose to live in Muslim countries for a short or long period, and when they do, to willingly adopt to the requirements of the Shari'a, as filtered down in their particular situation. While women in Iraq, or at least the most advanced women in Iraq, have been trying hard not to have the chador, abyaa, whatever you want to call it, right down to the eyeslit of the niqab, imposed on them, some Western women appear almost gleeful in the requirement, as they see it, to dress that way.

It's fun. It's a kind of civilizational slumming, or rather, a rapid abandonment of all supposed principles -- where be that famous feminism now?

There was Giuliana Sgrena, the shrill-voiced hysteric (I heard her on the RAI), with her illogic and malevolence toward the United States and toward the West, well-watered by Il Manifesto. There was Margaret Hasan, who spent decades in Iraq, who through her lot in with "the Iraqi people" and even married an Iraqi (an Iraqi whose reaction to the news of her death was strangely muted), and was executed because, alla fin fine, she was an Infidel. There were the two Simones, as Oriana Fallaci called them, part-Sgrena part-Hassna in their crazed blend of unappeasable anti-Western animus and identification with Islam, and their enjoying their roles as "Muslim women" without having to be Muslims to enjoy it.

This dressing up voluntarily in Islam-mandated clothes is part of the fun, apparently, for some girls. It is of a piece with what those Western converts to Islam feel when they get to choose, upon their "reversion," a Muslim name, as if they now have a special secret identity in this new club (look everybody -- Now I'm Soleiman al-Kosovi), and those special Arabic names of various prayers, and all the rest of it. Super cool. Be the first on your block. For all the world like Huey, Dewey, and Louie in their special club.

It would help if every young female marching off to "help the people" in Iraq or Afghanistan were to first, seriously, sit down and read carefully both the articles by such people as Azam Kamguian on Islam and women, or go to the website of the Homa Darabi Foundation (start with the scathing reviews of Shirin Ebadi), and then as well to read the study of Islam and its incompatiblity with human rights, written by Rexa Afshari. And see, in particular, Reza Afshari's unanswerable dissection of the smiling dishonesty of that phony "feminist" Fatima Mernissi, who started out as a self-proclaimed defender of women's rights, and rather quickly, seeing what this might do to the image of Islam, became a sudden Defender of the Faith, with a highly imaginative version of that Faith and its supposred history of "reform."

Then perhaps the hijab will be worn. But not delightedly. Not in a spirit of "what fun." But in a spirit of grimly sharing, and only temporarily, what Muslim women endure, and some manage to be brainwashed into thinking is only just, slaves reconciled to their own enslavement.

Hell, don't go to Iraq or Afghanistan to play. Just sew yourself your own little costume, abaya or chador, full-fledged burqa in the latest spring models provided by the House of Taliban -- you should see their Kandahar sfilate. Put in on the privacy of your own home, here in the United States, or England, or Italy. Go ahead -- prance around the house in the damned thing. Have fun. Get it out of your system. And the same for all you boys and girls who want to have a special Arabic name. Write and tell us some details (you know, what city you'd like as part of the name, or region), and for a mere, oh, $10, we'll email the name right to you. Fun? And you don't have to be a Muslim to get the special name or the decoder ring. Spare your parents, spare yourself, years or possibly a lifetime of anguish. Play Just Pretend. Avoid the real thing; it will stunt your mental growth.

I might be wrong about this, but I recall that right after the kidnapping, reading in one of our esteemed mainstream news sources, that most of the female detainees were not there for serious crimes, and were scheduled for release shortly anyway. It might very well be a coincidence, as the coalition authority claims.

It seems the brutes holding Jill Carroll are not strong enough to kill her, in a "banality of evil" sort of way.

Quijybo

She took her chances and she should face the consequences, knowing that -if she were ransomed- it could only mean that more reporters, etc. would be targeted for further ransoms for future terrorism, ad absurdum.

It would make more sense to immediately detain MORE Iraqi women suspects (I'm sure there are reasons enough) to say: we already understand you kidnappers are maniacs, but will only try to track you down to free any hostages you take, and kill you, NOT have "coincidental" appeasment prisoner releases.

The lady was dumb enough to work for the CHRISTIAN Science Monitor in an Islamic Republic filled with Al-Qaedi infiltrators and homegrown Muslim infidel-killers. What did she expect?

Hopefully, Jill will make it out ok. Unfortunately, releasing the female prisoners appears to be acquiescing to their demands. GW repeats over and over, "We will not negotiate with terrorists." However, we seem to have blinked.

http://www.thecanadianmuslim.ca/hijabs_blog.html

Hugh, you last paragraph:

"Hell, don't go to Iraq or Afghanistan to play. Just sew yourself your own little costume, abaya or chador, full-fledged burqa in the latest spring models provided by the House of Taliban -- you should see their Kandahar sfilate. Put in on the privacy of your own home, here in the United States, or England, or Italy. Go ahead -- prance around the house in the damned thing. Have fun. Get it out of your system. And the same for all you boys and girls who want to have a special Arabic name. Write and tell us some details (you know, what city you'd like as part of the name, or region), and for a mere, oh, $10, we'll email the name right to you. Fun? And you don't have to be a Muslim to get the special name or the decoder ring"

This is funny stuff. LOL stuff imho. I take a somewhat different view . . . how about releasing all of those frauleins and maybe tailing 'em or pick them up after the hostage is released. Once again, where are the parents? Where was their guidance? I'm going off to the wizard in Jordan? Isn't that where she went . . . gone native . . . no bodyguards . . . just blend right in. Isn't this exciting. I'm sure when and if she's released she extoll the virtues of her captives ala Stockholm. What a ditzy broad, yet I hope no harm comes to her. Strange in her video that we see no fear. She seemed calmed and collected . . . surely these good Muslims will see what a proper dhimma I am?

Quijybo:

I may be out of the loop on this story, but does anyone really know if poor, foolish Jill is still alive? I doubt the four "Christian Peacemaker Team" members kidnapped in late November are, and it appears that Susanna Ostoff may have been a party to her own kidnapping, so that may be why she was released.

I know that this site take umbrage at bringing up the Leftist/Islam axis all the time -- I understand the reasoning -- But in cases such as this, where our military is hampered by ideas which primarily stem from leftist platforms, we see how the leftists are tying our hands behind our back in our battle with Islamic Jihad...

We couldn't mercilessly flatten the terrorist town of Faluja because of the fear of the leftist propaganda campaign which would follow such a "brutal imperialist massacre" so many more soldiers had to die...

We aren't allowed to decimate these tribal al Qaida and Taliban shit holes in Pakistan because the NYT will only show doctored pictures of the aftermath showing our brutality ... Never mentioned here or elsewhere was the endless repeat image of the little pathetic doll cynically placed above the rubble pile which gained endless airtime on CBS, NBC, CNBC, CNN, ABC, etc... This was clearly staged, and meant to convey the MaiLai qualities of the US WOT...

Anyway -- until we crush the leftist impetus among our own population to slander every US action against terrorists or terror havens, we are doomed to suffer more casualties in the war, and fail to make meaningful progress... I am nauseated by the fact that US and European leftism has made the US deathtoll in the WOT far higher than it otherwise would be, and the deathtoll of the Muslim terrorists far lower than it otherwise would be...

This sickening story about pandering to the terrorist demands to free this terror sympathizing mouthpiece is disgusting... It wouldn't be happening at all if we didn't have a huge leftist 5th column working in conjunction with the huge Islamist 5th column in our midst... all of it to thwart our efforts and effectiveness against the more dangerous Islamic fascists... But make no mistake, the leftists are an insidious force for fascism in our midst which we ignore to our peril, as stories like this illustrate.