I can gladly report that James Brandon, the British journalist has been released and is safe. I couldn’t say anything about his capture publicly earlier, because he’s a good friend of mine and I didn’t want to do or say anything that could scotch the negotiating process. Me and the rest of the journotribe here have been working the phones all day on his behalf. I’m exhausted, but I bet he’s more tired than I am! At least he’s fine, and all is OK (well, as least as they can be in Iraq.) I’ve still got to file, however, so this will be short.
Let’s also remember the nameless Iraqis who go missing every day never to return to their families simply because they don’t have the benefit of being journalists with friends at big magazines. I’m thankful for James’ safety, but I’ll be even gladder when Iraqis no longer fear similar abductions.
Amen to the ‘nameless Iraqis’ - each person is important.
Great job, Chris, and amen to the sentiments in your closing paragraph. Apparently Iraqis don’t count in the bulk of the media’s reporting - not in the casualty count, at any rate, and not in the kidnapping reports either, at least not here in San Francisco. An Iraqi friend of mine had his uncle kidnapped a month or so ago (got him back, thank God, for a fat price); his uncle has a position with the new government that is a fairly high one, and we heard nothing at all about it. In fact, the kidnappings themselves were barely mentioned in any major media until your TIME article came out. Now I notice we are getting a lot more press on the issue. If it weren’t for your blog, and others, we would be utterly uninformed about the day-to-day conditions in Iraq; thanks again for doing what you do. And please, please, watch out for your own self while you’re doing it. P.S. Have you heard anything at all about al-Shehbibi (sp?), who is supposed to be in chanrge of circulating the new currency? Just curious …
Excellent website. Keep on the good job. I just added a link to your site from my weblog: www.iraqjungle.com
If you get up north to Mosul, you might do a profile on ‘CB’ … his blog is one of the best around from an infantryman.
http://cbftw.blogspot.com/
Now it would surprise me not at all if we don’t hear about this in western media, but are Iraqis also being abducted?
If so, by who and what for? For the most part, the abductions we hear about are foreigners who are being used for leverage against whichever country they come from. I’m curious as to what insurgents gain - financially/politically/strategically - by abducting regular Iraqis.
Well done on the interview with Allawi by the way.
It’s most likely not insurgents who are kidnapping average Iraqis. From what I’ve been able to find out, it’s mostly criminal gangs whose motivations are ransom. They’re taking advantage of the lawless situation here. My driver’s uncle was kidnapped and killed, for example; because they thought he was rich because he owned a business. Unfortunately, he wasn’t and they killed him. Nothing political about it; just pure criminality.
Could you please let me have an e-mail address for James Brandon? We would like to communicate with him on his possible participation in a conference in Germany in May 2005 on Peace Journalism (expecting about 5000 participants).
Heike Spiegelberg
Desk to Overcome Violence
National Council of Churches, Germany