Jill Carroll after 82 days:and she's holystoned! UNBELIEVABLE

[Guest guest]

You're abducted at gunpoint from a Baghdad street your friend and

translator is killed before your eyes you're held hostage in

isolation for 82 days in rooms where you can't even see outside and

threatened with death. Finally, you're forced to make a propaganda

video, saying things you don't believe in a desperate attempt to save

your life.

 

And then, miraculously, it works you're finally released, reunited

with your loved ones, and finally feel like you're " alive again "

 

" To be able to step outside anytime, to feel the sun directly on your

face, to see the whole sky. " As Carroll told reporters waiting for

her plane to touch down at Boston's Logan Airport, " These are

luxuries that we just don't appreciate every day. "

 

A happy ending, no? A ray of hope in an otherwise bleak landscape of

war, terror and torture, right? Cause to celebrate and rejoice, one

would think? Instead, inexplicably, despicably, Jill Carroll came

under vicious attack all over again -- this time by her own

countrymen and peers, fellow members of the media.

 

The mugging of Jill Carroll by the pathetic likes of John Podhoretz,

Don Imus and the rest of their wingnut cohort from the right side of

the blogosphere makes me sick. How dare these misguided, ill-informed

armchair analysts unleash their barrage of criticism accusing Carroll

of showing " too much sympathy for her kidnappers? "

 

Have they no shame now? They certainly should, after accusing the 28-

year-old Christian Science Monitor correspondent of, at best,

a " Stockholm Syndrome " identification with her tormentors, and, at

worst, treason?

 

After all, following an emotional reunion with her family in Boston,

Carroll spoke of her loathing for the gunmen who threatened her with

death " many times " during her ordeal, described her captors

as " criminals at best, " disavowed a videotaped statement made during

her captivity and another made shortly before American troops arrived

to take custody of her, and denied allegations that she had refused

to answer questions from the American military.

 

" Things I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some

as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not, "

Carroll said in a statement released Saturday by the Monitor

newspaper.

 

I wonder if Imus' racist, homophobic and idiotic producer Bernard

McGuirk would like to repeat his disgusting suggestion that Carroll

may 'even be carrying Habib's baby' now? "

 

It's a disturbing sign of our partisan-crazed media ecology that

Carroll came under sustained assault from pro-war right-wing bloggers

and talk radio hosts who attacked her for stating -- while under

obvious duress -- that she had not been threatened during her

confinement, as well as for wearing Muslim dress and sympathizing

with her captors.

 

Anyone with a brain -- or even a heart -- would know, as Carroll

pointed out once she was free, that " fearing retribution from my

captors, " she could not speak freely, that " out of fear, I said I had

not been threatened, " when in fact, she " was threatened many times. "

 

What was Carroll's crime? Merely this: She is a suspected member

of " the liberal media " that hard-up, hard-core supporters of this

illegal, unconstitutional and unwinnable war -- from the White House

down -- claim is allying itself with the insurgents resisting

America's occupation of Iraq.

 

Of course, Carroll never expressed any understanding or sympathy for

the insurgency. Rather she distanced herself from the sentiment,

stating explicitly, " I abhor all who kidnap and murder civilians, and

my captors are clearly guilty of both crimes. "

 

" You'll pretty much say anything to stay alive, " noted Micah Garen, a

documentary filmmaker who wrote a book about his 10 days as a hostage

in Iraq in 2004. Like Carroll, Garen was forced to make a video

before his release. Political controversy and " media craziness " are

two of the issues Carroll will confront in the coming weeks, Garen

added.

 

His words were echoed by another former hostage, U.S. Sen. John

McCain of Arizona, a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. McCain

said on Meet the Press that Carroll's comments in the video should

not be taken seriously. " This was a young woman who found herself in

a terrible, terrible position. And we're glad she's home, " McCain

told NBC's Tim Russert. " We understand when you're held a captive in

that kind of situation, that you do things under duress. "

 

So why can't the right-wing chickenhawks understand that?

 

Damn good question.........bob