More Insight Into Carroll's Situation

I think anyone who wants to criticize anything Jill Carroll has done or said should at a very minimum stop and read this article first. I'll say it again: this woman is not a soldier, and she was under no obligation whatsoever to hesitate for a nanosecond when asked to participate in producing a propaganda video if she thought that doing so would help win her freedom or, in the alternative, that hesitating might put her in danger.

That said, the videos (well, I guess one video and one web-based segment) are now out there, and they are clearly pieces of propaganda value. Once she's had a chance to catch her breath and be with her family, she does need to tell us if those are words she would have chosen or not. Because the words are out there now, and they will be used by the enemy. Whether she wants to claim them or not is her choice, but she can't just leave them bouncing around out there without some clarification.

Another note on what comes next: once Ms. Carroll is back in the States what she really needs and deserves is to set her own timetable for awhile. What I mean by that is while it's certainly legitimate for the press to want to film her arrival home, the last thing she needs is to spend that time with her family with sound trucks parked on the front lawn. They don't need to live out these moments in the public eye. I'm guessing that the press will be respectful of that.

And if they are we should be jumping up and down. Because if they treat her family with the respect and privacy they deserve, it will be a pretty clear admission that they know damn good and well that the way they treat most people in similiar situations is outrageous. In point of fact, they treated her family with exquisite care throughout this. As I said at the beginning, when her family wasn't hauled onto the Today Show to share their grief with Katie, that doesn't bother me in the least: the family was treated, it seems to me, the way families should be treated. I just think the rank hypocrisy proves that they know damn well and good how bad their behavior in most circumstances truly is, no matter how they rationalize it.

Comments

[Bob]

I fully concur, and thank you for saying so much better than I could.

[Wayne]

On Fox News on Friday morning, one of Jill Carroll's friends said that she was not Anti-War and not Anti-Bush.

When she arrived at Ramstein AB today it was reported she was wearing a U.S. Military camo parka. No doubt it was lent to her, but she did not appear to object to wearing it - asn with the press present.

Relative to her not being a solider. In WWII near the end of the war with Japan, U.S. aircrew were given permisison that if captured they could tell the Jpanese anything they wanted so to escape torture. It was not going to affect the war one way or another.
One downed U.S. fighter pilot told his Japanese captors that his unit was equipped with the new lead-computing gunsights, and that while it was better than the old gunsights for the most part, if you made a sharp right turn then it would not work properly.
"Ahah!" said the Japanese. And the next time the Japanese fighters engaged the American fighters escorting the B-29's they tried to escape using sharp right turns.
Only .... those fighters did not have the new gunsight. And the P-51's blew the crap out of the Japanese.
Let's hope Jill Carrol's confession backfires on the terrorists just as badly.

[Subsunk]

Well said, Cori. Agree 100% with you. And you say it perfectly.

Subsunk

[Ron Hardin]

It still plays as a woman-story. A guy would be of little interest.

Which means, in the end, interest to the audience for the story, which audience attnetion is sold to advertisers.

The special dispensations for women are part of the woman-story.

I think a true feminist would pay no attention to her any more than a guy-release story.

It may be that gender difference as legitimate is coming back, but still if you're going to be a ``real'' journalist you can't go along with it, unless the women's page is coming back.

[dauber]

Thanks, all, for the support. It means a great deal.

[hhhhh]

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