Friday 20 January 2006

Remember the Hostages

Jill Carroll's life today is in the hands of madmen. It may be a fool's errand to expect that they will listen to voices of reason, but Carroll's parents continue their pleas. Whatever 'cause' the hostage takers may think they have, cannot be well served by their carrying through on their threat to end Carroll's life. My heart goes out to Jill Carroll and her friends and family, as it does to the friends and families of the Christian Peacemaker Team's hostages, Tom Fox, Norman Kember, James Loney, and Harmeet Sooden who have not been heard from since early December.

It is a tragic modus operandus that abductions often target the noblest and best of humankind's ambassadors to conflict, as the assassination of Margaret Hassan reminded us in November of 2004.

The CSM article on Jill Carroll has links to her outstanding reports about the war and its tragic effects on ordinary Iraqis.

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