Let's Trade Dick Cheney for Jill Carroll

Why does Jill Carroll matter more than anyone else who has been kidnapped in Iraq?
Everyone is up arms over the kidnapping of the Christian Science Monitor freelance journalist and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

Carroll is no more important than anyone else nabbed by Iraqi insurgents, so why is there such a concentrated effort to free her? No one put this much work into freeing the poor saps who had their heads cut off before her, so I fail to see why she is so important.

Carroll’s family had pleaded with her captors to let her go because she was telling the the story of the suffering of the Iraqi people. Fair enough. If more people cut through the Fox News bullshit, your average SUV driving asshole might be a bit more reluctant to blindly support the war. But the insurgents can’t pick and choose. One person can’t be deemed good in this mess while others are deemed “less good.”

It would be a horrible tragedy if this young woman ends up dead, but isn’t it a horrible tragedy when anyone ends up dead over there? The bad guys never get what’s coming to them. In a situation like this, only the relatively innocent will get harmed. If Dick Cheney was kidnapped, they would have grabbed themselves someone who has actually impacted their lives in a negative way. They would have gotten their man. And how fast do you think their demands would be met if ol’ Dick was paraded around on a crappy video tape for the world to see. In a damn heartbeat. Hell, I’d say trade Dick Cheney for Jill Carroll. Would too many people really care? If the nation could vote on it, Dick would be on the first plane to Baghdad, looking like Donald Pleasence from Escape From New York. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will play the Duke of New York. When Cheney’s handed over and Carroll is released, the country will cheer like they were watching a video tape of Omarosa getting hit by a car.

No, only the people who are doing the right thing or the folks just following orders get caught up in this mess. That’s why it’s tragic. But these monsters can’t suddenly grow a conscience and let this woman go because she’s “one of the good ones.” Because of the fact that we live in America and our tax dollars and Wal Mart purchases are going toward the war effort in Iraq makes us vulnerable to anything those bastards can dish out. You, me and Jill Carroll are all a part of it.

This is eerily similar to the story of Natalee Hollway who disappeared in Aruba. While dozens of women go missing all the time, once a pretty blonde disappeared, all hell broke loose. Why was she any different than a less pretty girl or, a black girl, who goes missing? She’s not, but when the situation affects the right people and the media yanks on the heart strings like Jenna Jameson jacking off two hot, horny studs, suddenly something must be done.

I hope Jill Carroll comes home safe. It seems like she was trying to do the right thing in Iraq, but the right thing and the wrong thing pretty much run together during a war. You can’t expect violent extremists to make the distinction, just like you can’t expect the Bush Administration to admit its failure with the whole fucked up war.

The US won’t negotiate with these people and that’s to be expected. She’ll probably end up dead, if she isn’t already. And if she comes out alive, that would be great. But if and when she ends up dead, I think the girl’s parents should ask Dick Cheney if he gives a shit. “Are they stockholders of Halliburton?” he’ll ask. “They’re not? Well, then I don’t really give a shit.”

You’re the Duke of Baghdad DICK. You’re an ‘A’ Number One A-hole.

JR