Under duress

I’m not buying the attitude we’ve seen from former hostage Jill Carroll. Everything I’ve read about her screams “fear” to me. The New York Times is backing up my gut feeling. The AP describes the scene today:

American reporter Jill Carroll’s three-month hostage ordeal ended Thursday when she was left on a Baghdad street in front of a Sunni political party office. She appeared composed and eager to talk about her 82 days held captive in a tiny room.

“It’s important people know that I was not harmed,” she said.

Wearing a green Islamic head scarf and a gray Iraqi robe, Carroll was dropped off at midday near an office of the Iraqi Islamic Party. She walked inside and was then driven 20 minutes to party headquarters, where she called her family and gave an interview to Baghdad Television before being handed over to U.S. authorities.

The 28-year-old reporter for The Christian Science Monitor said her kidnappers confined her to a small room but treated her well. Although her captors issued televised threats to kill Carroll if American forces did not release women prisoners, she said: “They never said they would hit me, never threatened me in any way.”

[…] In the interview, Carroll seemed well and animated and spoke in a strong voice. She frequently tucked her hair under her headscarf, and appeared excited to be free nearly three months after she was ambushed and her translator killed.

That’s not the only weirdness. There’s this:

About 12:15 p.m. Thursday in west Baghdad’s Amiriyah neighborhood, Carroll was dropped near a branch office of the Iraqi Islamic Party. Carroll walked into the office, carrying a letter in Arabic from her kidnappers instructing the party to help her.

She “introduced herself as Jill Carroll … and gave us a written letter in Arabic that asked the Islamic Party help her,” Alaa Maki, a party member, told reporters.

Carroll was then taken by an armored car to the party’s headquarters, where she was interviewed by the party-owned Baghdad Television and given a copy of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, that appeared to be covered in gold leaf.

I have several questions. Why was she interviewed on the Iraqi Islamic Party’s television station before being turned over to the U.S. authorities? Notice she was dressed in Islamic dress and they gave her a Koran. Can you say, “Propaganda”? I knew you could.

My gut says she was threatened by her kidnappers that if she did not go along with what was in the letter, they’d come after her again. The New York Times has a quote that bears this out.

Tariq al-Hashemi, the general secretary of the Iraqi Islamic Party, said at a news conference that Ms. Carroll walked into the office and handed officials a paper written in Arabic asking that the party help her.

Alaa Makki, another leader in the party, said Ms. Carroll seemed wary about talking about her captors.

“We asked her, ‘Why did you come to the I.I.P.? Why did you choose the I.I.P.?’ ” he recalled. “She said, ‘I really don’t know.’ ”

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.”

I’m not buying Stockholm Syndrome until she comes home to the U.S. and continues to propagandize. The cheerfulness of this story stinks to high heaven, as does her insistence that her kidnappers never threatened her. If that was the case, why was she crying in previous videos that her kidnappers released?

From the AP piece:

Carroll wept in a Jan. 30 tape on Al-Jazeera television, and the voiceover of the video said she appealed for authorities to free all women prisoners in Iraq to help win her release.

Ten days later, in a video dated Feb. 2 and aired by a private Kuwaiti TV channel, Carroll spoke in a strong voice, saying she had sent a letter to prove she was alive and now was appearing on television for the same purpose.

“I am here. I am fine. Please just do whatever they want, give them whatever they want as quickly as possible. There is a very short time. Please do it fast. That’s all.”

My take on this? You saw a woman who was extremely happy to be released, but who is probably going to be telling a different story once she’s back home in America. I’m withholding judgment for now.

Update: Toldja so.