Jill Carroll, the 28-year-old, attractive, freelance journalist kidnapped in Baghdad in early January and released in late March has attained an instant status of celebrity. No doubt she will sign a contract with a hefty fee to write a book about her experience and she will tour the various talk shows, make speeches, and prosper.

I am pleased that her captors did not kill her. Since the liberation of Iraq, more than 200 foreigners have been abducted. Most were released, but 54 are known to have been killed. No one knows how many Iraqis have been kidnapped and killed. The score keeps growing every day in a place where there is no real law and the Minister of the Interior warns Iraqis not to cooperate with any militia that are not accompanied by American soldiers.

Something, though, continues to nag at me about Ms. Carroll. News of her release reminded me of how, in November 2004, Margaret Hassan, the Iraqi director of CARE International, was abducted and murdered. Ms. Hassan had been born in Ireland, but had married an Iraqi, living there for thirty years, devoting her life to the poor, particularly children. Why would any terrorist want to kill her of all people?

Ms. Carroll, after a brief stint as a “reporting assistant” with the Wall Street Journal had gone first to Jordan in 2002 and than into Iraq, freelance reporting for the Christian Science Monitor. Along the way, she had learned to speak Arabic and, by most reports, was utterly fascinated by Arab culture.

Here’s where things get odd. After her abduction, the Jordan Times published an editorial appealing to her captors. “By kidnapping her, you silenced one of the few pro-Arab and pro-Iraqi voices in the international press. By continuing to hold her, you are harming the Arab and Iraqi cause. We said this once and we repeat it today: With her firm rejection of any propaganda, her resolve to serve the truth, even at great personal risk, and her determination to expose the horrors of war and the suffering of the Iraqi people, Jill makes one of the best ambassadors Arabs could ever hope for.” (Emphasis added)

Just before her release, she was videotaped by her captors, “Brigades of Vengeance”, and, in an Associated Press and other articles, she had some interesting things to say. Asked how she had been treated, she replied, “The treated me very well, like a guest given good food, kept safe, treated very, very well,” adding, “…there are a lot of lies that come out of the American government calling the mujahedeen terrorists.” Earlier, in a response to another question, she said, “It makes very clear that the mujahedeen are the ones that will win in the end.”

Carroll, having apparently missed the fact that the Sunni Baathists had run a dictatorship for over three decades, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and that many of the “insurgents” were from outside Iraq. Reportedly she said that they “were only trying to defend their country…to stop an illegal and dangerous and deadly occupation.” Her abductors say they spared her life because “the American government met some of our demands by releasing some of our women from prison.”

Of course, in a similar position, I would tell my captors anything they wanted to hear. Perhaps that was all she was doing. A few weeks earlier, a captive Christian anti-war activist had been videotaped opposing the occupation. His captors shot him and dumped his body in the street.

There is a general presumption that journalists are objective and report without bias what they see. The Jordan Times makes it clear that Ms. Carroll was seen by Arabs as “pro-Arab.” A perusal of the stories she filed for the Christian Science Monitor does not suggest an anti-American bias, but her sympathies were clearly with the suffering Iraqis.

With the news of her release on March 30, I recalled an earlier video that was aired in which she is seen weeping and fearful. Nothing unusual in that, but when she was released she said, “I was treated well, but I don’t know why I was kidnapped,” adding, “They never hit me. They never even threatened me.” She was given clothes and well fed.” The two images and messages directly contradict one another. Both images showed her dressed as an Arab, Islamic woman.

A vast international effort was launched to secure Jill Carroll’s freedom. As an article in the Christian Science Monitor noted, “Across the Muslim world, voices not normally heard on behalf of an American, called for Jill’s release: Hamas in the Palestinian territories, the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, and many others.” Why?

When the Italian journalist, Guiliana Sgrena, was released in February of last year, she barely escaped being killed by American troops as the car driven by an Italian intelligence officer, Nicola Calipari, was fired upon as it sped down the airport road. Calipari was killed. The Americans had received an anonymous tip that the vehicle was a car bomb.

Instead, Carroll’s captors merely left her off at the office of the Iraqi Islamic Party where, conveniently, her first interview was videotaped. I want to hear what Ms. Carroll has to say in future interviews regarding American policy in Iraq.

I want to know why everything went so well for Ms. Carroll and so badly for Margaret Hassan, but it is doubtful that I will ever learn the truth. That’s the way it always is in the Middle East.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column, “Warning Signs”, posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com.

© Alan Caruba 2006