Freed German hostage says Iraq captors not criminals

[deadparrot]

DUBAI (AFP) - A former German hostage who spent 24 days in the hands of unknown captors in
Iraq said her kidnappers were not criminals and had demanded humanitarian aid for Sunni Arab regions.

Speaking to Doha-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera, Susanne Osthoff said her captors told her not to be afraid as her kidnapping was "politically motivated."

"Do not be afraid. We do not harm women or children and you are a Muslim," she quoted them as saying.

"I was so happy to know that I had not fallen into the hands of criminals," she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051226/wl_mideast_afp/iraqgermanyhostage

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Shrub will be pleased to know he is dealing with nice folks even

if he has to raze them and put them in the ground.

[w13rd0]

2. Desperate times...

...I can imagine that if my children were dying, I had no food, and my family of working age was seeing a 60% unemployment rate, had no stable electricity or clean water, I might take up desperate measures... Uh oh, I guess I should be expecting a knock on the door.

[Pavulon]

3. Lucky she did not get the queen of hearts treatment(nt)

[brentspeak]

4. She sounds like a nut

She described her captors as "poor people" and that she "cannot blame them for kidnapping her, as they cannot enter (Baghdad's heavily fortified) Green Zone to kidnap Americans."

Did you get that? She sympathizes with her captors because they are unable to kidnap Americans.

:thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :wow: :wow: :wow:

[girl gone mad]

5. Sounds like a case of Stockholm Syndrome. n/t

[JanMichael]

9. What exactly is wrong with that statement?

It's a fact. They are poor, they are suffering from what WE have done, they are trying to fight us, but we've sealed up an area that makes that doubly difficult and the fact is they probably would prefer to kidnap those citizens that are from the #1 invader of the 21st Century, the United States.

Stockholm? No. Reality.

EDIT: Why call her names? She's a "nut"? She just went through an experiance that had to be nerve rattling regardless of her treatment, so she's a "nut" for having an opinion?

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

13. hey- wake up

[enigma000]

6. We do not harm women or children and you are a Muslim

:wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf:

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

14. hey you--wake up too

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

7. Right.

said her kidnappers were not criminals

Right. Except that they demonstrably are criminals.

Susanne Osthoff said her captors told her not to be afraid as her kidnapping was "politically motivated."

"Do not be afraid. We do not harm women or children and you are a Muslim,"

Oh how positively enlightened.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

15. and you need to read my post too- wake up !!

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

8. posters here don't seem to realize THE IRAQIS ARE RESISTING OUR OCCUPATION

Let's open our eyes -
We as Americans who allow a dictator to remain in power
are at least partially responsible for the beheadings, barbaric dismemberment
and torture of well over 200 thousand Iraqi citizens...

Yep I did say beheadings ! -->Those Cluster Bombs, MOABS, and Daisy Cutters will take yer head right off---Whap !!
not to mention the cruel yet ever popular "White Phosphorous"-makes hell seem like heaven

We invaded THEIR country-
We currently occupy THEIR country-
They are kidnapping as a means of leverage in their quest to rid themselves of invaders.

Iraq posed no threat to its neighbors and certainly not to us here in the Divided States of America.
Thousands of our own citizens have been crippled and killed because we were lied to by our dictator(Who by the way has no intention of ever leaving his current position)
and still as citizens we refuse to remove this pResident
--->so now the front man for a Diabolical Corporate Empire is in charge of the most powerful nation on earth--WTF ? :(

Troops home now!
Occupation can never lead to freedom.
War can never bring peace.
Truth by example.

[LostinVA]

10. I understand what you mean, NT

Even if I don't agree with their methods, I at least understand the reasons....

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. The posters in this thread act as if they are the side that was wronged...

...in this Iraqi fiasco. They sound remarkably like the British when the American colonists decided they had had enough

Newsflash for the terribly misinformed:

The U. S. illegally and immorally invaded another sovereign nation based on a pack of lies. The U. S. is the aggressor, and is now responsible for the deaths of nearly 100,000 Iraqis. And quite a few of those dead Iraqis are women and children.

If there is anyone on the DU boards that can defend this, let them speak up now.

[JanMichael]

12. I can't wait for the replies.

Good post:-)

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. You are attempting to justify...

...the kidnapping of PEACE ACTIVISTS. Please, by all means, sit in front of your computer and talk this shit. But please, don't go to Iraq and try to actually do something about it. Because you'll be kidnapped. (And I'm sure it'll be by the nicest possible people, too.)

[clixtox]

17. It is a WAR!!! (and a sermon to the choir)

I can not blame any Iraqi for almost anything that they do to fight back. Terrorism, too often, is their only viable option. The US Armed Forces and our hired mercenaries along with the coalition of the BILLING, have to get out of Iraq now, PERIOD!!! There is no "winning" there just the same as there will be no end to the war on terror as long as we constantly create more terrorists with our imperialistic behavior. The only end to terror, both domestic and elsewhere, will happen when we share what we have instead of ripping off the world to maintain our profligate consumption. As we swipe, steal and shakedown the rest of the world for their resources we are ruining the planet and making mortal enemies of people who would much prefer to be our friends. The USA is the real hub of the AXIS OF EVIL. We are bound to pay the price, both now with pollution, terrorism, poverty, hate and war, we will end up with a cascading series of ecological disasters and possibly end up with literally nothing, a dead planet. That process is happening right now all around us and only the most deluded honky- doryite can avoid knowing and seeing it.
Here is a radical thought... How about we empty all of the commercial storage places in the USA and take all the stuff we bought and literally do not have room for and don't even use, to the developing world and distribute it all for them to use, or sell on eBay. Next we empty our garages that we can't even fit our vehicles into and send that all of that stuff. Let's face it we think of this stuff as crap! Even the bicycles we don't use would make a huge difference. How about the blankets and clothes...

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

18. GREAT Post! -the very Survival of this earth depends on what we do NOW

If we don't change the greedy self-indulgent actions of those in charge, if we don't change the rules on a planet of 6.5 billion people and continue along as if resources are still seemingly "unlimited",
if we wait till the water supply is undrinkable, the air is unbreathable (no more Rain Forests producing oxygen),
and the food chain is completely obliterated (the oceans completely dragged for sushi bars)
-then it may be too late.

How anyone could not recognize this is unbelievable !

Everyone gets together on this and we stand a great chance--if everyone's just out for themselves we're history---but there will be no one to read any history books about what happened on earth in the early 2000's.

[The Stranger]

20. Welcome to DU.

Hope you surive the experience.

[DFWdem]

22. You can't be so naive as to think....

"War can never bring peace."

Have you ever heard of WW2? If my memory serves me correctly, we haven't been involved in a war with Japan, Germany, or Italy since 1945, the year the WW2 ended. War seems to have brought peace in that instance.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

23. do we HAVE peace? who is the one who is naive here? Ghandi/MLK shed lite

We do not have peace nor will war ever bring peace-
Watching the history channel on cable tv is very interesting!
Technology has now made the human race much too capable of total annihilation--
so we must somehow evolve past the brute force mentality that has historically prevailed-

The very survival of our planet depends on it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. If you're condemning the German woman you need to read this:

September 2004, Harper's by Naomi Klein, about how the neocons are trying to remake Iraq as a wholly-owned economic colony of the U.S.

http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

There's also another Harper's article from somewhat earlier in which a Canadian(?) journalist interviewed some insurgents and learned about their motivations.

Don't start spouting off about how U.S. forces have to "finish the job" until you've read and pondered these articles, because if you continue to spout conventional wisdom, you'll be doing so as a brainwashed creature of the mainstream media.

I know it's hard for some of you "our side is always right" types to acknowledge this (I went through the same soul-searching during the Vietnam War) but we are not the good guys in this conflict.

If some other country were doing to the U.S. what the U.S. is doing to Iraq, I believe that most of us would be "insurgents" or sympathizers of insurgents.

[Zodiak]

21. I have to agree with this

Regardless of the "rightness" or "wrongness" of kidnapping, against the backdrop of an illegal war, a brutal occupation, and rampant poverty, I cannot sit in judgment on what Iraqis do to get the US out.

We are the bad guys, and it makes me sick that I have to agree with this. We have lost our way, and those of you who have yet to see it are certainly in for a bigger fall than I experienced. I'm sorry because it really sucked for me.