Posted on 08/13/2006 5:09:50 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
CERTAIN she would be murdered by the men who kidnapped her on a Baghdad street and fatally shot her translator, American journalist Jill Carroll begged her captors at one point to use a gun to end her life rather than a knife.
"Promise me you will use this gun to kill me by your own hand. I don't want that knife, I don't want the knife, use the gun," Carroll remembered crying hysterically to the Iraqi man who was watching her with a 9mm pistol at his side.
For the first time since she returned to the United States in April, Carroll has described her chilling, 82-day experience as a hostage in Iraq.
The Christian Science Monitor, the newspaper for which Carroll reported from Baghdad and now works as an editor in Boston, published the first installment of her 11-part series overnight on the newspaper's website.
Carroll, who was snatched on January 7 after trying to interview a Sunni politician, described how a sunny Saturday morning turned deadly as a group of men pointed their pistols at her and gunned down her friend and translator Alan Enwiya.
The men surrounded the 28-year-old reporter, shouted "Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!" and sped away on Baghdad's main road, according to the account.
Carroll wrote she was later grilled about how many American reporters lived in Baghdad and accused of working with US intelligence agents.
When Carroll asked her captors to shoot her instead of killing her with a knife, she said she had been held for six weeks.
"They'd given me a new hijab (headscarf), a new name (Aisha), and tried to convert me to Islam," she wrote.
As days turned to months, Carroll, who speaks Arabic and moved to Iraq to fulfill a dream of being a foreign correspondent, said she was interrogated, but, at times, was given a remote control to a television set where she watched the The Oprah Winfrey Show.
She said her captors also let her play with their children.
At one point, she said they served her from a platter of chicken and rice "that would have been fit for an honoured guest".
"We have no problem with you. Our problem is with your government," her captors told her as they prepared to release tapes of the journalist wearing a headscarf and weeping.
When Carroll first returned to the United States, she described her captivity as a horrific ordeal in a cave-like room sealed off from the world. She said she was threatened many times by her captors, whom she described as "criminals at best".
Just before her release, Carroll said she was forced by her captors to make a video in which she denounced the US presence in Iraq and praised the militants fighting American forces there. Carroll later disavowed those comments.
Carroll's parents and twin sister kept a public face on her ordeal through frequent, emotional appeals for her release on US and Arabic television.
On Thursday, the US military said it arrested four Iraqis suspected of being involved in Carroll's abduction.
Daniel Pearl was jewish. He was dead the moment they took him.
The disdain for Christians certain freepers have is amazing.
You're the one who brought up Christ. Interesting.
I brought up CHRISTIAN COMPASSION. Something sorely lacking from most on this thread.
No, actually you posted the following:
**I bet you call yourself a Christian.
3 posted on 08/13/2006 5:14:27 PM PDT by Hildy**
Your comment was snarky.
That's what I said...You call yourself a CHRISTIAN...I didn't say, YOU CALL YOURSELF CHRIST, did I??? You know exactly what I mean and I'll say it again. Those here who believe this woman deserved to be kidnapped and fear for her life for months are not very CHRIST LIKE....
Are you absolutely certain the freeper who made the original comment is even indeed a Christian? Or are you assuming it to be so in order to sneer.
Furthermore, why should you even be concerned if people are or are not exhibiting Christ-like behavior if you yourself are not a Christian?
We all know what CHRISTIAN COMPASSION MEANS. You're reading things that aren't there....stop being so angry about everything.
Yep.....Snarky. Snarky, uncalled for, and out of line. Also, in trying to wriggle free of the obvious blunder, has failed to address the reason for the original comment. Now blaming some of us for a lack of "Christian Compassion". Just goes to show, even those who hate Christians wish everyone but themselves would display Christian virtue and values.
I'm not angry, Hildy. I'm just pointing out the obvious insinuation you shared in that post.
I tend to agree.
Here we go again.. I DON'T HATE CHRISTIANS...where on Earth can you translate ANYTHING I said into something as ridiculous as that. I said those who are willing to comdemn this woman are showing little CHRISTIAN COMPASSION. Why don't you debate that statement instead of trying to convince yourself I'm a Christian Hater....you're just changing the subject, can't you see that?
The ONLY insinuation was that some people here were not showing any Christian Compassion. And it wasn't really an insinuation..it was a statement and I stand by it.
Yes she did, in Jordan, wearing a hijab and abaya. She called herself Zaineb before she ever set foot in Iraq. The story goes that she already converted in Jordan, but didn't go public with it because of her association with the CSM (conflict of interest).
I bet you call yourself a Christian.
Your words, not mine. I think most people would deduce that you had a beef with Christians based on your first post. Maybe not hate, how about "seriously dislike"
This insane person would like to explain to you that Jill Carroll went into Iraq specifically to write about the “atrocities” American soldiers were committing against “innocent” Iraqis. As a wife of a soldier who’s husband spent 16 months in Iraq, I take her actions as an act of treason and a personal attack on my husband and the military’s character and reputation. She took a stand against the United States and our military, and helped to fan flames and incite anger.
Let me spell it out for you. That kind of action helps get people like my husband killed.
That said, this insane person has zero sympathy for Jill Carroll and whatever discomfort she may, or may not have been put through. As far as I’m concerned, if she spent three months being frightened and scare for her life (even though they were nice to her sometimes and fed her nice meals here and there) then she got her comeuppance.
Maybe, by some miracle this experience, if not embellished, will give her newfound respect for our country.
Are you referring to her articles in the Christian Science Monitor, or the propaganda videos she was forced to make and disavowed after her release, or some unconfirmed rumors from anonymous sources?
I haven't seen anything in her CSM reports that would substantiate that allegation yet, so please help us out and provide a link to verify the claims.
Please back up your claim that she went there to investigate "attrocities." Even if she did that, that is a job that an objective journalist is supposed to do. I respect your husband's service, but I don't believe he was fighting in order to brand those American citizens as "traitors" who are simply doing that which is expected in a free society.
And, thus, I stand by my earlier post. If you think (and apparently you do) that she deserved what she got, then yes, you are at least temporarily insane, blinded by hate.
For all you know, he could be jewish.
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