About Jill Caroll

Well, I mucked up some of the coding in a long comment I left at Right Wing Nuthouse where proprietor Rick Moran makes some good points about the shoot-first, ask-questions-later mode of many right-wing bloggers about statements made in captivity by terrorist kidnap victim Jill Carroll. Below is the gist of what I said:

Good points in this post but I think you’re glossing over a key event you reference briefly: Her interview with the Iraqi Islamic Party after her release, in which she continued to speak positively about her terrorist kidnappers.

Many bloggers, but but by no means only bloggers, were startled by the statements she made in what they took to be her first opportunity to freely speak her mind. The mainstream media reports about that interview pushed in the same direction. Here’s one by the AP's Mariam Fam that I found at washingtonpost.com:

BAGHDAD, Iraq—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 freelancer for The Christian Science Monitor said her kidnappers confined her to a small, soundproof room with frosted windows 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….

Dr. David Wellish, a psychologist at the UCLA School of Medicine, said he had the impression Carroll was suffering from a psychological trauma known as “Stockholm syndrome,” a survival mechanism in which a hostage begins to empathize with his or her captors.

“Jill Carroll clearly went down the Stockholm syndrome spectrum part of the way,” he said, adding he thought it would take her “a few weeks to get over it and regain perspective.”

It was unclear, however, whether Carroll would have given a different assessment in the interview Thursday were she not still in Iraqi hands _ albeit the offices of a Sunni political party.

Now let’s face it, the general attitude of American reporters toward the war is not one that argues against believing what she said was heartfelt. But even more than that, I think you should pay more attention to how this interview was framed. She “appeared composed and eager to talk.” She gave an interview to “Baghdad Television.” She “seemed well and animated and spoke in a strong voice.” She “appeared excited to be free.” And when we get an expert in the story to talk about Stockholm syndrome, the reporter adds “It was unclear, however, whether Carroll would have given a different assessment in the interview Thursday were she not still in Iraqi hands.”

Now I’m not saying that every one of these points were made in every MSM story—but I think if you go back and read other accounts, you’ll find the same plot.

So I’d be much harder on people who attacked her statements while still in terrorist captivity than those made when it appeared she was completely free. I’d be much more critical, for example, of the party officials who exploited a kidnap victim in this way.

And I don’t get most of the indignation about NRO's John Podhoretz, who is being criticized, now, for saying the following:

It’s wonderful that she’s free, but after watching someone who was a hostage for three months say on television she was well-treated because she wasn’t beaten or killed—while being dressed in the garb of a modest Muslim woman rather than the non-Muslim woman she actually is—I expect there will be some Stockholm Syndrome talk in the coming days.

Again, this was made after the IIP interview. Seems like a reasonable statement which turned out to be true.