Kidnapped Journalists
Hamas is saying that they are making progress in freeing two kidnapped Fox News journalists, Steve Centanni and freelancer Olaf Wiig. That's right, Hamas says it is making progress.
"Things are going in a positive direction," Palestinian Interior Minister Saeed Seyam of Hamas said in a statement, though he offered no details.
The statement was the first on efforts by the Hamas-led government to free Fox correspondent Steve Centanni and camera man Olaf Wiig.
Asked to elaborate on the statement, Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal would only say that there was "an important development and progress" in the case.
New Zealand-born Wiig, 36, and American Centanni, 60, were seized on August 14 as they were working on a story in central Gaza City. Theirs is the longest-lasting abduction in Gaza in more than a year.
On Wednesday, the previously unknown Holy Jihad Brigades claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and gave the United States 72 hours to free Muslim prisoners or else the captives would face unspecified consequences.
The deadline is set to expire around midday on Saturday.
If I were the cynical type, I might wonder about whether Hamas is actually involved in the kidnappings, but playing it as if they were riding to the rescue. For propaganda purposes, of course. If I were the cynical type…
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bRight & Early » First Cup 08.25.06 — August 25, 2006 @ 6:53 am
By Black Jack, August 25, 2006 @ 2:40 pm
Mike Whitney, a former Seattle area Democrat Party official defends the kidnappers, and blames Fox News.
The following is from Cliff Kincaid’s Post Chronicle article, August 25, 2006
http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/article_21235939.shtml
Mike Whitney claimed that the Fox employees are “an integral part of the American war machine” and should not be considered non-combatants.
Whitney, a former official of the Snohomish County Democrats in Washington State, declared that, “The group which captured the two Fox employees did what they felt they had to do to address the egregious human rights abuses at American gulags at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. When peaceful means for acquiring justice are foreclosed, violence becomes inevitable. This truism is even enshrined in our own Declaration of Independence.”
By Gaius, August 25, 2006 @ 2:56 pm
Good lord.
Can we finally question their patriotism? How about their humanity.