March 30, 2006, Jill Carroll Released Unharmed
Freelance journalist Jill Carroll, who was kidnapped while working in Iraq some three months ago, has been released, unharmed.
She appeared on Iraqi t.v. pleading for her life; demands were made (and unheeded) that all women prisoners in Iraq be released. Nonetheless, despite deadlines for her murder passing, she was released to American authorities, unharmed, not knowing herself why she was kidnapped.
I will speculate that there appears to be some version of chivalry (or maybe it's just machismo or sexism) at play, among some sectors in Iraq, that just will not permit them to murder a woman ("it's unmanly") at least not under circumstances like a kidnapping. There are plenty of other maniacs in Iraq that have no such compunction, of course. Miss Carroll was fortunate to fall into the clutches of the type of group that had compunctions about killing her.
We can call this one of those "good news out of Iraq" situations. We can wish we had more of them to talk about.