November 02, 2006

Negotiations in Progress for Release of Hostage Ahmed K. Altaie

The Department of Defense has confirmed that the missing American soldier in Iraq is Spc. Ahmed K. Altaie (alt Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie), 41, of Ann Arbor, MI. Altaie had married an Iraqi woman and was kidnapped while visiting her at his in-laws house by gunman thought to be members of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

The military now has also admitted that it is ongoing dialogue to win his release. This seems to be code for "we are talking with his captors". Which is good news and may be an indication that his captors do not wish to continue to hold him.

Yet some are saying the U.S. is not doing enough to free the soldier.

If the military is not doing all it can do to free him, shame on them. And recent moves to back down from a cordon meant to find him certainly seem to indicate that our military is bowing to political expediency over honor and duty to comrades.

The Commissar asks where the right-blogosphere is on this one? He cites the Left's concern from Sullie and Kos.

Sullie makes a good point, if it is based on the correct premise. That premise being that the U.S. has abandoned its search for Altaie. I cannot believe for a moment, though, that it has. It may have abandoned the cordon, but the U.S. re-emphasized today that it was continuing an intensive search for the presumed hostage.

Kos makes no valid points at all. Just blame Bush, and its a non-sequitor to boot. If the military backed down from the cordon, it did so at the request of the State Department. Here is Kos, a backer of the State Department view of world affairs, criticizing the Bush administration for doing exactly what Kos would have them do.

But no one has ever accused Kos of being anything but a partisan hack. And not a very good one at that.

If any criticism of the military is valid, it is that the military was too timid in its use of force at the beginning of this campaign. The same use of force decried by the Leftist Kos and by that 'conservative' Andrew Sullivan. You know, the kind of force that might 'alienate' the local population.

But there is something else that is troubling about this case. That something is the fact that the last time an American of Arab background claimed to have been taken hostage it turned out to be a hoax. It is only a small possibility, one that I hate to even mention, but last time I chided other bloggers for questioning the veracity of the 'hostage's' story it turned out they were right. And since Bill from INDC mentions it in the Commissar's comments anyway, I'll go ahead and mention what a lot of people might have been thinking.

Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun had deserted his post to return to his girlfriend in his native Jordan. The naturalized American was AWOL, not held hostage as he alleged. He was later charged with the crime. Then, he fled to Jordan Lebanon. The last time I checked, Lebanon had refused to extradite him to the U.S. (any updates on that?)

Is it possible that Ahmed K. Altaie may be another Wassef Ali Hassoun? Could this explain the apparent non-interest by the military in locking down Sadr City in order to free him? I'm not inclined to believe it given the fact that we probably are negotiating with someone, but it's still a possibility.

From his name and from the fact that he is from Ann Arbor, it seems that there is a strong likelihood that he is a Shia. Why would the Mahdi Army have any interest in kidnapping a Shia? They may be a bunch of assholes, but they are fairly consistent in who it is they harass.

Even if he is Sunni, he's still a U.S. soldier. And the Mahdi Army has only targetted U.S. troops a few times in the past. Of the hundreds of propaganda videos and statements I have seen coming out of Iraq, almost nothing from Sadr's personal thugs. They target Sunnis, not Americans.

They are both a self-protection militia involved in ethnic cleansing and Muqtada al-Sadr's personal brownshits involved in bullying their way into political power, but they have no wish in engaging the U.S. military head on.

This just does not fit their m.o. Maybe they are trying to help him desert? Or maybe he has deserted and the whole kidnapping scenario is just a cover story? Possible, but again not likely given the negotiations.

Unless they kidnapped him and then found out later just who he was and are now just trying to figure out what to do with him. That seems much more likely.

And if true then Altaie was kidnapped and the military is vigorously searching for him and trying other ways to secure his release. The cordon around Sadr City just wasn't working and so ending it was just good policy. It might also have been a condition for the Mahdis to open a dialogue with whoever it is in the Iraqi government serving as a go between.

And if it was the Mahdi Army that kidnapped him, then that would certainly explain why the U.S. is now in the process of negotiating for his release. The Mahdi Army would certainly not want to keep an American hostage. It is more of a game of hot potato for them and I can't imagine they are making any more demands then 'please do not annhialate us'.

But even though we are talking to his captors, we continue to look for him. In fact, the U.S. military says that 2,000 U.S. forces and 1,000 Iraqi police are searching for Altaie as we speak. Does that sound like the forces leaving behind one of their own as Kos describes it? Or the commander-in-chief abandoniing an American soldier to the tender mercies of a Shiite militia as Sullivan describes it?

These faithful idiots will use anything in their vitriolic attacks on the Bush Administratin. I describe them as faithful idiots because it is a matter of faith that all effects have the same cause.

Only an idiot can believe that all effects have the same single cause. And such idiocy is a matter of quasi-religious faith in an unprovable theory of everything.

It is a tenant of faith by the partisan Left that Bush causes everything bad, including a hostage situation in Iraq.

The faithful idiots of the partisan Left only differ from the faithful idiots in the ideological Left in that the ideological Left holds as a tenant of faith that America causes everything bad. Think Chomsky.

So, we pray the U.S. troops are not being hampered by fools in the State Department. We hope that there is some logic behind the search for Spc. Altaie. We especially hope and pray for his immediate and unconditional release.

In the past we have found that the U.S. military actually does a fairly good job in finding and freeing hostages. Think Roy Hallums.

And if the Mahdi Army is responsible then I expect some Iraqi politician or other to negotiate for his freedom and then take the credit. Think Jill Carroll.