UPDATE: CTP finally acknowledges the soldiers who saved their hostages:
We are grateful to the soldiers who risked their lives to free Jim, Norman and Harmeet. As peacemakers who hold firm to our commitment to nonviolence, we are also deeply grateful that they fired no shots to free our colleagues.
One wonders, though, if this statement is reflective of a true sense of gratefulness to our military on the part of CPT, or if it was motivated by the need for damage control after all the negative publicity from bloggers over their previous reaction to the rescue of their members.
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This morning, Drudge and other major news outlets are headlining this press release from Christian Peacemaker Teams:
Our hearts are filled with joy today as we heard that Harmeet Singh Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember have been safely released in Baghdad. Christian Peacemaker Teams rejoices with their families and friends at the expectation of their return to their loved ones and community. Together we have endured uncertainty, hope, fear, grief and now joy during the four months since they were abducted in Baghdad.
We rejoice in the return of Harmeet Sooden. He has been willing to put his life on the line to promote justice in Iraq and Palestine as a young man newly committed to active peacemaking.
We rejoice in the return of Jim Loney. He has cared for the marginalized and oppressed since childhood, and his gentle, passionate spirit has been an inspiration to people near and far.
We rejoice in the return of Norman Kember. He is a faithful man, an elder and mentor to many in his 50 years of peacemaking, a man prepared to pay the cost. (emphasis added)
And just so we understand why these three men ended up as hostages in the first place, CPT helpfully explains:
They knew that their only protection was in the power of the love of God and of their Iraqi and international co-workers. We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq. The occupation must end. (emphasis added)
But the newswires relate a startlingly different version of this event:
3 Western Aid Workers In Iraq Rescued In Military Operation (NY Times)
The hostages were found when American-led forces raided a house in western Baghdad, acting on information from one of two detainees interrogated late Wednesday night, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a spokesman for the American military, said at a news conference in Baghdad. The kidnappers were not in the house. The men were in "relatively good condition," he said.
In London, the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said the mission had included British forces.
"It follows weeks and weeks of very careful work by military and coalition personnel in Iraq and many civilians as well," Mr. Straw said, adding that it involved a number of countries, including Canadian personnel.
The Associated Press also reports:
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the U.S. military spokesman, said the hostages were being held by a “kidnapping cell,” and the operation to free the captives was based on information from a man captured by U.S. forces only three hours earlier.
No kidnappers were present when the troops broke into a house in western Baghdad. The captives’ hands were tied, Lynch said. (emphasis added)
While I rejoice in this obvious answer to prayer, I am honestly at a loss for words over CPT's deliberate blindness to the truth of how their members were saved.
Without hesitation, I fully stand by everything I have previously written about CPT.
My GodBlogCon friends over at The A-Team Blog had this to say:
All this makes me wonder something about the theology of the Christian Peacemaker Teams. On Easter, will they thank Christ for rescuing them from their sins? Or will they give props to Satan for letting them go?
Ouch.
More good commentary on Michelle Malkin.com - check her trackback links.
And while I'm thinking about it, remember this?
In the late 1980s, public television stations aired a talking head series called Ethics in America. For each show, more than a dozen prominent thinkers sat around a horseshoe-shaped table and tried to answer troubling ethical questions posed by a moderator.
... Ogletree [the moderator of the discussion] ... asked [Peter] Jennings to imagine that he worked for a network that had been in contact with the enemy North Kosanese government. After much pleading, the North Kosanese had agreed to let Jennings and his news crew into their country, to film behind the lines and even travel with military units. Would Jennings be willing to go? Of course, Jennings replied. Any reporter would - and in real wars others from his network often had.
But while Jennings and his crew are traveling with a North Kosanese unit, to visit the site of an alleged atrocity by American and South Kosanese troops, they unexpectedly cross the trail of a small group of American and South Kosanese soldiers. With Jennings in their midst, the northern soldiers set up a perfect ambush, which will let them gun down the Americans and Southerners, every one.
What does Jennings do? Ogletree asks. Would he tell his cameramen to "Roll tape!" as the North Kosanese opened fire? What would go through his mind as he watched the North Kosanese prepare to ambush the Americans?
Jennings sat silent for about fifteen seconds after Ogletree asked this question. "Well, I guess I wouldn't," he finally said. "I am going to tell you now what I am feeling, rather than the hypothesis I drew for myself. If I were with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I think that I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans."
... Immediately Mike Wallace spoke up. "I think some other reporters would have a different reaction," he said, obviously referring to himself. "They would regard it simply as a story they were there to cover."
... Ogletree pushed Wallace. Didn't Jennings have some higher duty, either patriotic or human, to do something rather than just roll film as soldiers from his own country were being shot?
"No," Wallace said flatly and immediately. "You don't have a higher duty. No. No. You're a reporter!"
... A few minutes later Ogletree turned to George M. Connell, a Marine colonel in full uniform. jaw muscles flexing in anger, with stress on each word, Connell looked at the TV stars and said, "I feel utter ... contempt. "
Two days after this hypothetical episode, Connell said, Jennings or Wallace might be back with the American forces - and could be wounded by stray fire, as combat journalists often had been before. The instant that happened, he said, they wouldn't be "just journalists" any more. Then they would expect American soldiers to run out under enemy fire and drag them back, rather than leaving them to bleed to death on the battlefield.
"We'll do it!", Connell said. "And that is what makes me so contemptuous of them. Marines will die going to get ... a couple of journalists." The last few words dripped with disgust.
Not even Ogletree knew what to say. There was dead silence for several seconds. Then a square-jawed man with neat gray hair and aviator glasses spoke up. It was Newt Gingrich, looking a generation younger and trimmer than when he became Speaker of the House in I995. One thing was clear from this exercise, he said: "The military has done a vastly better job of systematically thinking through the ethics of behavior in a violent environment than the journalists have." (emphasis added)
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