1 Sounding more and more like another BS kidnapping. She is a better actress then Sgrena, though.

2 Was the murder of her translator and friend part of the "BS kidnapping"?

3 Good question, Peter, and one to which an answer should be found.

4 Actually, I remember your claim of the IAI being the captors of the CPT4... that was how I stumbled across this hole in the wall.

I don't know about Carroll... but I am still dubious about your claims concerning the IAI and CPT4. The tremendous outpouring of support for them from Palestinians is why I doubt it. The PLF and Abu Abbas were founding members of IAI. The CPT4 were in Iraq for years investigating stories of death squad activity directed against Palestinians and Sunnis. They came in to the country from Syria with Palestinians.

The fact this recent claim comes from the Interior Ministry does not give me any confidence in its veracity. The death squads are being run out of the Interior Ministry. If you think that is looney left wing bullshit...take it up with Major General Peterson. He's the highest ranking US Army officer to confirm the existence of death squads operating in the Special Police Commando units...

5 WRT to the killing of Carroll's translator. His name was Alan. Riverbend knew him and wrote a rather poignant rememberance of him in her blog (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/)

The link to that entry is here:

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#113709584389005811

6 Could be. There is nothing that the Lefties won't do for their insane agenda.

7 Come one William. You should be more brighter than that. Of course she didn't fake her kidnapping. Her best friend was killed. The only hostage that faked a kidnapping was Wassef Ali Hassoun. He's living the life in Lebanon which has refused to extradite him to the U.S. I doubt Jill is being held by the Islamic Army. The group that kidnapped Bayan Jabr's sister is called the Revenge Brigade. The Revenge Brigade is also holding Jill Carroll. The sister was thankfully released. Calm down William. You're going crazy. Jill is an innocent and very attractive woman who faces a bullet to the head. You should be praying for here like Rusty. Not degrading her. Thank you for your time and God bless.

8 The PLF helped found the Islamic Army in Iraq? WTF??

The "claim" that I made that "The Swords of Righteousness Brigade" was really a front for the IAI has been confirmed by numerous intelligence sources. The fact that the video of the CPT4 first appeared on the IAI website (before they removed) is fairly strong evidence, isn't it?

I agree about the veracity of the claim, especially given the Arab tendency to exaggerate to the media. If you read Arab media for any period of time then you realize just how speculative and filled with conspiracy theories they generally are.

Also, the fact that a couple of hit squads seem to have been working out of the Interior Ministry does not mean that the entire Interior Ministry is one big hit squad. Especially given that the head of the Interior Ministry is a Sunni and the hit squads are alleged to be Shias against Sunnis.

9 For those of you who think she is "in on it" because of the way she appeared in the videos, consider this from former hostage Roy Hallum:

"In my case, and it sounds like Jill's case, they hand you a script to read and tell you to memorize it."

If someone points a gun at you and says "cry for the camera," you do it. If someone points a gun at you and says "say the lines calmly and tell them you're fine," you do it. Period.

Is she in on it? Possible, but Allan Enwiyah's death and the obvious agony of her family and friends say "no."

Lighten up, pray, and hope for the best.

10 Thanks for the reality check Dave!

11 I dont think any rational person believes the nonsense of William Teach, who calls others "insane". Talk about a glass house.

12 Yes... IAI was formed by a coalition including members of Abu Abbas' group. Remember there were a lot of Palestinians in Iraq, they were given preferential treatment under Saddam. In fact, the one thing I ever agreed with Ollie North on was his take that "Saddam will fight the Israelis to the last Palestinian"...

WRT to the death squads... it's not a couple. More like a few dozen. And true the ENTIRE IM is not a death squad. But when you have torture chambers in the IM building... where electric drills are used to kill people.... I think you have a hard time arguing the IM doesn't know what is going on.

As for the location of videos on servers used by IAI... that is not terribly informative. Even though it was stored in a restricted access directory. It is well known that groups are sharing resources ... grabbing each others stuff and making competing claims. You don't have any chain of custody to make any real inferences from.

Your point about speculation is valid... and worth holding front and center. The reason I keep focusing on possible death squad activity is that it is a unifying thread between the CPT4 and Carroll. They were there to investigate the charges. She wrote about the death squads.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0504/p01s04-woiq.html

The other three reporters who have written about it (Steve Vincent, Yaseer Saliheh, and Fakher Haider) are all dead.

That was last year, before things started changing and the Army started to re assert control over the IM and training. It was US forces that uncovered the torture at IM. It was US forces that busted the recent death squad. Unfortunately, it was US contractors that trained the Special Police Commando units.

The chain of command is clear :

James Coffman to James Steele to Steven Casteel to John Negroponte.

All of these guys were involved in counterinsurgency training in CA... and the groups they trained were involved in atrocities.

The reason why I harp on this is the "Salvador Option" is creating massive problems for the men and women serving under military command. I am glad to see Peterson stepping in and trying to clean out that cesspool. Unfortunately, I think he is too late.

Like you, I'm praying all the hostages get out alive. We pray for them every night at 7 PM. Feel free to join in. God forbid they don't get out alive, then the people responsible (and that includes the people their captors answer to) have to be held accountable. I don't care what flag they fly under.

13 Thank you Dave, Rusty and Peter Dolan. It's nice to know not everyone in the world thinks hostages fake their kidnappings.

14 To 8ackgr0und N015e, your thoughts about the death squad connection are intriquing. I've also thought it suspicious that the official whom Ms. Carroll was supposed to interview conveniently disappeared prior to what was clearly a well-planned abduction. There is no solid proof, only circumstances and speculation, but this has always sounded more like a set-up to me than a faked abduction.

15 Unfortunately, it was US contractors that trained the Special Police Commando units.

Can you then reinforce that statement, with the specifics of their training? are you then saying that U.S contractors trained them to torture, and detain with the intent of purging people? because there is a big difference between training them in the use of weaponary, engagement, detaining and security detail -- then painting with a broad brush that they trained them to be "death squads" as you call it.

16 Isn't it possible that the U.S gave paramilitary training to some Iraqis which is now being used for unintended purposes? Is that what you meant?

17 it obviously was a set up Dave. Jill, her interpreter and her driver go to this mieeting. He isn't there. They leaver and gunmen kill her interpreter, and kidnap her. The driver miraculously escaped. Someone told the gunmen she would be there. There are terrorist moles all over the country. No foreigner is safe.

18 Like anyone, I wouldn't wish death on any of these people. As horrid a person as I think G. Sgrena is, I wouldn't wish it upon her any more than Ms. Carroll. I only think it's a shame that when they are fortunate enough to be released some go right back to spewing invectives at the same old targets and it's never the people who kidnapped them. Yu'd think it would be a sort of wake-up call, at least to some degree.

19 Yup, I thought this was pretty obvious too but noticed no one else ever seems to comment on it.

20 I'm not sure you could really compare Guiliana Sgrena to Jill Carroll. The former was (and remains)an American basher who glorified the insurrection. The latter was a journalist that was equally critical of anyone whom she thought was harming civilians. But I do agree that no one deserves to be treated in this manner whatever their convictions.

21 Robert Savage's scenario reminds me of another mole:
The abduction of Jack Hensley, Eugene Armstrong and Kenneth Bigley:
"These are kind people who have come to rebuild Iraq," she added. "Why did this happen to them?"
Neighbors knew the foreigners because they had allowed them to use their generator for electricity during Baghdad's sweltering summer.

Several neighbors said the men had at least two guards who worked in shifts, and one said the guards were unarmed. Others said the guard hadn't showed up, prompting some of the foreigners to open their black iron gate and go out in their underwear during the power outage to turn on the generator. It wasn't clear if that was the moment the kidnappers seized to snatch the men.


The night they're abducted, miraculously the Guard doesn't show up, and people knew they would go out and switch on the Generator (and share their electric too)

22 David to answer your questions directly:

I am saying that the Police Special Commando units (specifically the Wolf Brigade, Scorpion Brigade, Volcano Brigade, Snake Brigade, Lion Brigade, and others like them) were specifically created as part of a counterinsurgency strategy referred to as the "Salvador Option".... the argument that policies used in Central America during the 70s and 80s would be effective in Iraq. This happened under Bremer's CPA where some local militias (e.g. Badr Brigades and other SCIRI militias) were recruited as part of "de-Baathification"... essentially they were given intelligence so they could go cap former Ba'athists or sympathizers.

This work was originally done by contractors working with Special Forces.

The problem was that did not quell the insurgency because it morphed into a guerilla war where tribal and regional affiliations play an important role.

The people responsible for training, outfitting, etc. were not merely following a doctrine from the Reagan era (which was actually an extension of the Phoenix Program used in Vietnam)... they are the SAME people who carried out these policies in Central America. There is no question that the groups trained by Steele, Casteel and Coffman , supplied by Goss and managed by Negroponte were actively involved in death squad activities. This has been a matter of public record for decades.

There is nothing in the public record to suggest that these men believe they did anything wrong.

There is plenty of evidence in the public record that the same sorts of atrocities have been going on in Iraq with American complicity.

The big difference between Iraq and El Salvador is this time the US Army is actively trying to disrupt these groups while a war is going on.

As far as references go... you can google any of the names (including journalists) that I provided along with "death squad" or "death squads" ... that way you can pick and choose whatever references you find most credible without worrying that I am slanting this.

23 Clarify the point about contractors though, are we talking about a company like Blackwater?
I wasn't aware there were civilian "mercenary" forces under the Phoenix program, or are you saying those same people left the folds of the CIA/Military and went to work for a U.S contractor?

24 Dave, I harbor no ill feelings toward Ms. Carroll yet I do toward Ms. Sgrena. The only reason for bringing them both up was to make a point that whether or not they share my political beliefs to any degree, I wouldn't wish kidnapping or death on either. I wasn't trying to draw any parallels between them them or the circumstances surrounding their situation.

25 I apologize for the misunderstanding and thank you for the clarification.

26 No problem

27 I'll admit it, I was wrong. Forgot about the people killed with her. My bad.

28 You've taken quite a beating here, William, but I can also understand. When I first saw that third video I, too, was a bit suspicious. Then I read firsthand accounts from former hostages and understood what I was probably seeing much better. These people play psyche games and the victim has to go along just to survive.

29 Dave,

Your latter point is the one I intended. Steele was former Special Forces. Since CA he has left and become a contractor. Coffman I believe is active duty Special Forces he answered to Lt. Gen. Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne.

Steele was a former Army colonel when he was posted to El Salvador in the mid 80s. After leaving the Army he went to work for Enron. He was working as a contractor answering to Bremer for at least the initial period of this program.

Casteel has a long career in DEA, mostly in Latin America. He was the one who put the "Special Police Commando" units together with Falah al-Naqib, then Interior Minister under the transitional government.

Negroponte...we all know. He's the fellow who left behind three mass graves and secret prison cells at El Aquacate when he departed Honduras.

Since most of close to 100 bodies exhumed after his departure were peasants without dental records, it was very difficult to tie their disappearance and death to Contra operations. However, one of the victims was an American priest, James Francis Carney.

30 Well, it was good for a converstion starter, eh?

31 Perhaps, William, but keep in mind that the lives of people (and not just Jill Carroll's) are at stake here. Some people don't appreciate too much jocularity under such circumstances.

32 wasn't meant that way for the original comment.

33 Fair enough. Gotta' admit, you definitely say what you mean, and it takes a big man to acknowledge a mistake. Gotta' respect that.

34 "God forbid they don't get out alive, then the people responsible(and that includes the people the captors answer to) have to be held accountable. I don't care what flag they fly under."

Mr. Noise makes an interesting allegation here. He is alledging that certain people in Iraq(specifically the CPT4 and Jill Carroll) have been kidnapped by death squads operating in Iraq under the auspices of the Interior Ministry. He is accusing Americans of training and perhaps even influencing the targets of these death squads, and is suggesting that higher ups in the US are giving orders to these goon squads.

Those are interesting allegations, Mr. Noise. I hope you have some proof. That is why you continually attack Rusty when he posts on the Islamic Army in Iraq being behind the kidnappings. You want it to be otherwise. Time will tell.

35 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/10/11527/172

36 Mr. Noise,

It would take cash(and a large amount) to get me to go to dKos, and I never accept anything there as truthful. You see, they lie all the time, so you never know what is true at Kos.

37 The problem, as I see it, with any theory involving underground or black-ops style paramilitary activity is that even if it DOES exists, there is usually plausible deniability due to the very secretative nature of such activity. No sources that are acceptable to the general public can usually prove such things conclusively. Most of the time, it's simply a matter of which sources you choose to accept.

The possibility is intriquing , but I remain very skeptical.

38 I want to thank jj for showcasing his prejudice... anyone who views the link will see why I used it here. Nice to see that jj calls me a liar without even looking at the material.