Kidnappers threaten to kill peace activists unless demands met by Thursday

[Freddie Stubbs]

Updated at 15:40 on December 2, 2005, EST.

BAGHDAD (AP) - Al-Jazeera television aired a new videotape Friday in which kidnappers of four Christian peace activists, including two Canadians, threatened to kill their hostages unless all prisoners in U.S. and Iraqi detention centres are released.

The kidnappers gave the two governments until Thursday to meet their demands, according to Al-Jazeera quoting a statement delivered with the tape.

The tape showed what the television station said were two Canadian hostages. An American and a Briton are also being held. The Canadians were shown eating from plates of what appeared to be Arabic sweets.

more: http://www3.cjad.com/content/cp_article.asp?id=/global_feeds/CanadianPress/WorldNews/w120249A.htm

[Ripley]

1. I thought this was at CRAWFORD!

What does that tell you about the good ole USA?

[Vogon_Glory]

2. What A Bunch Of F@#$%&* Heroes!

What a bunch of f@#$%&* heroes! :sarcasm: The bunch who kidnapped the peace activists lack the manhood (I presume that these goons are biologically male) to go and attack either the US troops occupying their country or attack what they probably see as the collaborationist government in Baghdad.

I'm sorry, this may be ethnocentric of me, but I have only contempt for gun-toting, swaggering goons lording it over unarmed, terrified captives for their fifteen minutes of fame. Such behavior may once have been popular among slave-catchers in the South before the Civil War, it may have been popular for night-riding bed-sheeters after the Civil War, it may still be popular among certain segments of the population in the Middle East and elsewhere, but I think the sort of people who do that sort of thing are miserable excuses for human beings.

I opposed Buckaroo Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq. I still do. I am also convinced that Dubya and company ought to be investigated for war crimes. But I don't feel like I have to justify or make excuses for the antics of this self-proclaimed brigade of (Fertile Crescent chicken hawk?) "holy warriors."

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. The Americans ( the foreign army) keep saying that it's hard...

to tell the "good guys from the bad guys". I suspect our sworn enemies may be having the same confusion.

[Vogon_Glory]

10. They DO Have Google

The insurgents DO have access to Google just like everybody else. I understand that one Australian journalist was released when his English-speaking Iraqi captors did a Google search on him and found that yes indeed he really was a journalist.

I'm too tired and disgusted to make excuses for Buckaroo Bush. I'm also too tired and too disgusted to make excuses or rationalize for this self-styled "Swords of Justice," "Warriors of the White Camilla," or whatever they choose to call themselves.

[fbahrami]

12. so sad

See "the Battle of Algiers" for this exchange:

Reporter to captured terrorist:

"Isn't is cowardly to slaughter innocent civilians using explosives carried in women's shopping baskets?"

Terrorist:

"Is it any worse than using airplanes to drop bombs on innocent civilians? Give us your planes and you can have our baskets."


such a sad world we live in.

[mzmolly]

3. This is too much like the Berg situation. I am very frightened for these

people. I hope they are not just some tools to get the good ol' US of A backing the war effort again. I can't help but wonder, sorry.

Regardless I hope/pray that they are released somehow. So very tragic.

[katty]

5. agree--very strange

[dogfacedboy]

6. The other night I heard Hannity

talking about how these hostages "oppose the war in Iraq".
No thought what-so-ever about their safety. Hannity is such a piece of shit.

[Vogon_Glory]

9. Every Time I Hear Sean-The-Lad, I Hear Kipling...

Every time, I hear the Hannity lad on the radio, I keep hearing Rudyard Kipling's poem "Tommy" going through my head. And for those who haven't read it, I don't see Sean-the-Lad in the role of the poem's narrator or stepping up to the line of fire.

I fear for these peace activists' safety. I fear that they are witnesses for peace who may very soon find themselves becoming martyrs.

[daleo]

7. The stated demands will certainly not be met

I hope negotiations are happening through some channel or another, because these conditions wouldn't be met in a million years.

[truthInCO]

8. what else do they want

4 hostages and an unreasonable demand in an unreasonable amount of time. It doesn't seem like there's any other goal here but to create media frenzy, to play everyone in the world against each other, and to further fuel the anarchy and chaos fomenting in their world. I assume these well intentioned people knew this could happen, but were willing to give it all up for their cause. Tragic.

[applegrove]

11. Oh - god! Oh - god! Not again. Those people are monsters.