The Kidnapping Was a Ruse

When someone first suggested to me that the kidnapping of the two Italian women in Iraq ended in too convenient a manner to be genuine, I had my reservations, but now comes news that suggests that this is indeed what happened. Either they were in on their own "kidnapping", or Simona Torretta is one of the biggest idiots to have walked the face of the Earth.

ROME, Oct. 1 - One of the two Italian aid workers freed after three weeks in captivity in Iraq said the fight against American troops and their allies there was not terrorism but legitimate resistance to occupation.

"I distinguish between terrorism and resistance," the woman, Simona Torretta, told an Italian daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera, in an interview published Friday. "The guerrilla war is justified, but I am against the kidnapping of civilians."

How convenient for you.

Ms. Torretta and Simona Pari, both 29, were welcomed home on Tuesday with great fanfare by a nation distraught at their kidnapping and horrified that even aid workers opposed to the war could be targets for kidnapping.

In the interview, Ms. Torretta said she believed that she and her colleague were released because they were able to convince their captors that they were opposed to the war and that they helped ordinary Iraqis.

She added, "This was a very religious and very political group, and at the end it was convinced that we were not enemies."

My, what a virtuous bunch! If they were such splendid chaps, why did they carry out the kidnapping you say you're against? Perhaps it never was a kidnapping to begin with?

Ms. Torretta, who had worked in Iraq since 1997, repeated her call for Italy to pull its 3,000 troops from Iraq, and said that neither the election called for January nor the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi was legitimate. Dr. Allawi's government, she said, is "a puppet in the hands of the Americans."

Since their release, both the women have said they wanted to return to Iraq. In the interview, Ms. Torretta said she would not do so anytime soon. "I have to wait until the end of the American occupation," she said.

What utter stupidity. The only explanation I can give for her spouting such nonsense is that all we are seeing here is part of an elaborate exercise in political theater agreed upon between her and her "captors" (who we know she'd been working with against the "American occupation" for weeks beforehand) to gussy up attention and funding for their "resistance" efforts. Had she fallen into the hands of genuine abductors and been subjected to the sort of treatment that the Turkish lady who had been kidnapped and released had been put through, she wouldn't be in a fit mental state to open her ignorant mouth, let alone glorifying her supposed captors.

PS: The Washington Post has more on these two fools.

The criticism began almost immediately upon the arrival of Pari and Torretta in Rome on Tuesday. The pair expressed thanks to a variety of people and groups, including Arab moderates and Muslims. But they failed to single out the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

[...]

The women, who opposed the war and Italy's involvement in the occupation, also expressed a desire to quickly return to Iraq, and they called for an end to Italy's involvement. They made no appeal for the freedom of other hostages.

[...]

"The guerrilla war is justified, but I am against the kidnapping of civilians," Torretta added. The pair concluded that their captors were "exponents of moderate Islam" because they "prayed frequently," she said.

Such comments enraged Berlusconi supporters. At least 17 Italian soldiers have died in Iraq.

That really tells you everything you need to know, doesn't it?

Comments

[Stan LS]

I agree. This was very suspicious: "In fact they look as if they have put on a little weight.". How does one gain weight while scared for her life?

[Stan LS]

Apparently, one of them is a muslim convert.

[mac in japan]

What a bizarre, idiotic, conspiracy theory you have cooked up here, Abiola. There is nothing unusual about kidnap victims identifying with their captors, and no reason to think that anti-war foreigners would not be legitimate targets, as this Japanese woman was...

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fl20040928zg.htm

[Abiola Lapite]

Bizarre? And this coming from an advocate of the "Mexican Reconquista?"

The fact that anti-war foreigners are also kidnapped is irrelevant to the discussion. What is important is to note that:

1 - Unlike all other individuals kidnapped thus far, these two seem not to have had a single hair on their heads harmed, when even fellow Muslim women have been subjected to inhumane treatment.

2 - These "victims" were not only vocally identifying with their alleged captors before being kidnapped, but the intensity of their identification hasn't decreased an iota since.

3 - They've shown no gratitude to those who released them even while thanking their captors, shown no concern whatsoever for other captives, beyond mumbling a few platitudes after being prompted to do so, were not just happy to be free but actually *radiant* upon their supposed release ... in short, there's absolutely *nothing* to counter the suggestion that they voluntarily walked into this thing themselves, and they certainly had motive enough to do so.

If in light of all that you think it a "bizarre conspiracy theory" to wonder whether they're weak-minded idiots or collaborators, then I suggest you need to have your head examined. What's bizarre is suggesting that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are all part of some super-secret "Protocols of the Elders of Guadalajara", not that two vehemently anti-war communist nutbars who *chose* to go to Iraq of their own free-will might actually have staged their own kidnapping to embarrass their own government; it isn't as if there's no precedent for such a thing.

[mac in japan]

Did you read the link I provided? The Japanese woman who was kidnapped and released takes just about the same attitude as the Italians. Was that all faked as well?

What's bizarre is suggesting that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are all part of some super-secret "Protocols of the Elders of Guadalajara"

Yeah, that is pretty bizarre. What the hell are you talking about anyway? I've never suggested any such thing.

[Abiola Lapite]

"The Japanese woman who was kidnapped and released takes just about the same attitude as the Italians. Was that all faked as well?"

How can we rule it out? It isn't as if there's a law that says there has to be only one such scam, is there?

"What the hell are you talking about anyway? I've never suggested any such thing."

You've never suggested that there's a Mexican reconquista afoot? I'm certain I can find evidence to the contrary with just a little digging in my Haloscan archives.

[mac in japan]

This is what I said...

You speculate wildly about 60's liberals being racialists, and trumpet the end of overpopulation. Meanwhile... actual racialists at La Raza, MEChA, and the like are, with the aid of Presidente Bush, ushering in actual hordes, and posing a real overpopulation threat to America.

... and I wasn't talking about any conspiracy theory. La Raza, MEChA and Bush have all worked to promote massive Latino immigration over the last three and a half years, while turning a blind eye to the legality issue. They may have different agendas, but their actions are leading to the same result.

http://reti.blogspot.com/2004/08/disappearing-hordes.html

[No Name from the US]

I, for one, suspect that the kidnapping of the Japanese humanitarian worker and the two Japanese men with her was also staged. The whole world cried for them. Later, they admitted they were told to act afraid, and they all wanted to go back immediately.

I also suspect a hoax with the Australian Donna Mulhearn and her group that was supposedly kidnapped, which seemed to grow in number as I read more and more articles about it -- a lot of the details of their capture were contradictory or made no sense -- like saying they sent their Iraqi driver to go find and talk to the US forces who shot toward their car who were no where in sight, while someone else in their group reported that the soldiers were sitting in a vehicle. It makes no sense to send their Iraqi driver out to talk to US troops when the main reason they went to Fallujah was to use their western passports to get past US troops as they delivered aid. Contradictory accounts could easily happen when people are under stress, but they reported a good time was had by all with their kind and protective kidnappers.

An article that was circulating on the Internet said that the Simone kidnapping was anomolous because they were taken from their home office rather than from the road, and the kidnappers were dressed in government uniforms, and they seemed to be looking for them in particular, and they had ak47s -- so therefore it was probably a government covert action to make the insurgents look bad (like beheadings don't make them look bad enough?!). But James Brandon was taken from a hotel, the kidnappers were dressed as police, and they looked for him in particular, and they had AK47s. He was released supposedly on the orders of al-Sadr. That one sounded so much like it was staged that I had to look up photos of "black eyes" on the Internet to see of his even looked real (it did). Then I read his own personal account of his ordeal, and man did that smell like phony bologna.

And Lee (or Leigh) Gordan, kidnapped twice, first time taken under his captors' wing after they realized he was on their side, and then he was "kidnapped" with Donna Mulhearn and her group in Fallujah too. I couldn't help but notice how insensitive, and very suspicious, that reports from Donna and her cohorts, who were held captive together in one place, never mentioned once that they were worried about their poor friend Leigh Gordan and his driver who were supposedly bound and taken to a different location right after they were all abducted. Study the details and you see lots of other contradictions.

It looks like all of these aid workers/journalists know each other. Donna Mulhearn knew the Simonas. Donna Mulhearn knew Nahoko. Jo Wilding who was kidnapped with Donna reported that she knew James Brandon. I found an photo online showing Nahoko Takato hugging Simona Torretta's mother after they heard the Simonas were free. Maybe she just flew to Italy to lend support, but it is most likely that the aid workers knew each other before from their humanitarian work with children.

Could it be just a coincidence that so many clearly anti-American invasion/pro-insurgency humanitarian workers and independent journalists, who know each other, all happened to be kidnapped by the sweetest, kindest, apologetic, protective kidnappers (except Brandon painted his kidnappers as brutal before he was turned over to the really nice kidnappers)? I suppose it's possible that I am just connecting the dots in all the wrong places.

By the way, I am also anti-American invasion and can understand why many Iraqis would feel invaded and are fighting back, but that doesn't stop me from suspecting that these anti-war/humanitarian worker kidnappings don't sound real. You'd think that the governments for these people would investigate and figure out if they are real kidnappings. Maybe they're too afraid of the criticism. I can see why the Italian government would keep its mouth shut if they suspected a hoax. Imagine paying a million dollars to free the two beloved hostages, an act that promotes further kidnappings and feeds the opposition, and then having to admit that they were tricked by two activists? Ouch!