because she was eating them out of house and home! Couldn't afford the food bill anymore! That chin didn't come from starving for 3 months!
Posted on 04/02/2006 10:14:16 AM PDT by TexKat
BOSTON - Jill Carroll, the U.S. journalist held hostage for 82 days in Iraq, returned to the United States on Sunday aboard a commercial flight to Boston.
The 28-year-old was accompanied on the Lufthansa flight by a colleague from her employer, the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor, according to reporters on the plane.
Carroll declined to comment while on the flight. She left the airport in a black limousine escorted by state police. Her destination was unknown.
She was released Thursday after nearly three months in captivity. She was seized Jan. 7 in western Baghdad by gunmen who killed her Iraqi translator while the two were on the way to meet a Sunni Arab official in one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods.
Carroll left the Ramstein Air Base in southwestern Germany on Saturday after arriving from Balad Air Base in Baghdad. She strongly disavowed statements she had made during captivity in Iraq and shortly after her release, saying 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. On Saturday, she said the recording was made under duress.
"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.
"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."
Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., who was held prisoner for more than five years during the Vietnam War, on Sunday said Carroll found herself in "a terrible, terrible position" and said Americans should view her taped statements critical of the U.S. military presence in Iraq in that context.
"We are glad she's home. We understand when you're held a captive in that situation that you do things under duress. God bless her, and we're glad she's home," McCain said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
McCain said he would not take seriously anything Carroll said while she was being held captive.
"I would not take them seriously, I would not any more than we took seriously other tapes and things that were done in other prison situations, including the Vietnam War," McCain said.
Carroll, who has studied Arabic, attracted a huge amount of sympathy during her ordeal, and a wide variety of groups in the Middle East, including the Islamic militant group Hamas, appealed for her release.
Aside from the short interview aired on Iraqi television upon her release, Carroll had otherwise not shown herself in public prior to a brief appearance Saturday.
The kidnappers, calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, had demanded the release of all female detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 or Carroll would be killed. U.S. officials did release some female detainees at the time, but said it had nothing to do with the demands.
In the statement, Carroll also disavowed an interview she gave to the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab organization in whose offices she was dropped off upon 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."
The remarks have drawn criticism from conservative bloggers and commentators, but the Monitor said "Carroll did what many hostage experts and past captives would have urged her to do: Give the men who held the power of life and death over her what they wanted."
Carroll has said her kidnappers confined her to a small, soundproof room with frosted, opaque windows.
In her statement Saturday, she condemned her captors, although she did not address the war in Iraq.
"I will not engage in polemics. But let me be clear: I abhor all who kidnap and murder civilians, and my captors are clearly guilty of both crimes," she said.
Carroll thanked those who had helped secure her release and said she wanted time to recover.
"This has been a taxing 12 weeks for me and for my family," she said. "Please allow us some quiet time alone, together."
"This gal could be a valuable asset in turning the tide of the left"
If you mean change the thinking of the left then with all due respect, you cannot change the thinking of the left. Leftist thinking is the one anti-American constant that will never change as long as leftists consume oxygen.
She didn't make the speech denouncing herself. The editor of the CSM read a statement allegedly written by her on the other continent, which sounded, I maintain, ghostwritten, and motivated by damage control by the CSM.
The third article that omits the interview she gave after her "release". This whole story stinks..
I offer to you that this gal was a leftist with certain views when she went ti Iraq and furthermore that her views are very likely to be much different now after what she has actually seen first hand.
Many leftists will refuse to accept things until one of their own tells them.
It matters not how or why they accept the reality, it only matters that they do. This gal could help that happen for many people that, to this point, refuse.
"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.
"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."
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was held prisoner for more than five years during the Vietnam War, on Sunday called Jill Carroll a young woman who found herself in "a terrible, terrible position" and said Americans should view her taped statements critical of the U.S. military presence in Iraq in that context.
And they let her go because???
"Has anybody else heard that?"
You must be hallucinating.
If Kerry had been in Viet Nam, I'm sure he would've mentioned it at least once during his campaign.
......;-D
Well, she may now realize that the terrorists really are actually dangerous and they don't make any distinction between the Americans who sympathize with them and those of us who despise them.
But she sure took a boneheaded route to find that out.
Nobody but a moron goes prancing around Baghdad like she did. I cannot understand why anybody would do that.
And she'd been doing it up until she got nabbed.
because she was eating them out of house and home! Couldn't afford the food bill anymore! That chin didn't come from starving for 3 months!
AP - Sun Apr 2, 1:25 PM ET A motorcade carrying Jill Carroll, the U.S. journalist held hostage for 82 days in Iraq, leaves Logan airport in Boston, Mass., Sunday April 2, 2006. The 28-year-old journalist from the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor was accompanied on the Lufthansa flight by a Monitor colleague. (AP Photo/William B. Plowman)
The first tapes made her actually look "attractive". The impassioned pleading to the camera, the large floral backdrop on her second tape looked contrived. I wish I could say I totally believed her ... I cannot yet.
I am still skeptical as well.
Bump.
LMAO!
She left the airport in a black limousine escorted by state police.
Carroll was abducted in Baghdad on January 7 by armed militants who killed her Iraqi translator and released 12 weeks later on Thursday.
Her newspaper said it wanted to respect Carroll‘s wishes to spend quiet time with family.
You're right. My bad. I must be thinking of someone else.
Come to think of it, I never heard him mention that during the campaign.
Not once.
;-)
I think they let her go because they are starting to see that non muslims and muslims alike forwn upon the antics of killing civilians in ways they have been doing in this fight.
I offer that they tried a bit of propaganda here. In the short term they get some soundbites for their side and in the long term they get to snap her credability. No matter what she says now will always be compared to what she said then.
They call this a victory, me thinks they have a poor idea of what victory means.
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