Ex-hostage: Rebels wanted Bush re-elected

[Gasping4Truth]

Link to Boston Globe article

PARIS -- French journalists held hostage for four months in Iraq said their militant captors told them they wanted President Bush to win re-election.

In a four-page account of their ordeal, one of the reporters, Georges Malbrunot, also wrote that they saw several other hostages who were later decapitated. The journalists said their captors viewed foreign businessmen working in Iraq as their enemies.

One of the captors from the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq said Bush's re-election would boost their cause, Malbrunot wrote in Friday's edition of Le Figaro, the French daily he works for.

"We want Bush because with him the American troops will stay in Iraq and that way we will be able to develop," Malbrunot cited the captor as saying.

[chelsea0011]

1. Of course. Remember how the media went crazy when they said

Willie Horton(even though he couldn't vote) would vote for Dukakis. Now will they go nuts about terroists SUPPORTING Bush?

[Demeter]

3. Just after Bush Goes Ice Skating in Hell

and before the end of the world.

[drm604]

6. <sarcasm>Why should we believe them. They're French!</sarcasm> n/t

[slor]

9. Exactly...

we all knew this, but the right wing freaks will chalk it up to more of the French and their dislike of the chimp.

[wicket]

18. Damn that liberal media!!!!

:P

[saigon68]

2. "Sounds good to me", the CHIMPANZEE

George W. Bush is a war criminal

[renaissanceguy]

8. Agreed.

Get this bumper sticker at http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.15676271

[0007]

27. junior belong somewhere

and that somewhere is the Hague.

[leftchick]

4. Here is a direct link to the Guardian story.....

Pretty damn fascinating stuff. Some "dead-enders" you have there rummy you dummy!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4691990,00.html

<snip>
Another captor, who described himself as the group's head of internal intelligence, told the men that the Islamic Army has four enemies: American and coalition troops, ``their collaborators, that is to say Italian businessmen, or even French,'' as well Iraqi police and spies.

Malbrunot wrote that the Islamic Army has 15,000 to 17,000 members and that its hostage-takings are carefully organized.

``There are those who stop people on the roads, those that carry out interrogations, those that keep guard and those that judge,'' he wrote.

He and fellow French reporter Christian Chesnot feared at times that they would be killed, he said.

[Gasping4Truth]

5. Link to full story in "Le Figaro"

To practice your French. :P

http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/20041224.FIG0218.html

The article consists of 5 parts.

On edit: updated link

[FULL_METAL_HAT]

10. Link to google-translated article in Figaro

http://216.239.37.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/20041224.FIG0045.html

It may not be as good as real french, but sometimes autotranslation brings up some interesting things both from humor and sometimes from tangential insights in translating.

[Gasping4Truth]

11. The link doesn't remain valid

After pressing 'ALT-d' and 'CTRL-c' at the right time, I could capture the URL-encoded translation job:

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lefigaro.fr%2Finternational%2F20041224.FIG0218.html&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

Google gives up though halfway through each page.

[leftchick]

14. Welcome to DU Gasping4Truth!

Could you translate some of the article and post it. Please?

:)

[jakpalmer]

16. Excerpt from a conversation with the chief of "intelligence"

"Bush, the intervention in Afghanistan was very good for us; that allowed us to spread throughout the world. we are present in sixty countries throughout the world and our objective is to knock down the Arab powers and to return to the Caliphate, from Andalusia to the Chinese border."

We ask him what are his priorities:

"There are two of them. Saudi Arabia, Egypt. As for Jordan, one knows that this country is in the hands of the CIA. It is not good. But it is not our priority. It is known that all the Arab leaders are traitors. None is a true islamist."

[jakpalmer]

17. "Around us, two Macedonians were decapitated

Chalabi's bodyguard was decapitated. The (Iraqi) in charge of the power station was decapitated."

[TahitiNut]

20. It's just about what a guy said to the Barber.

:silly: :silly:


George Malbrunot:
"I lived on the planet Ben Laden"

The shortly after its return in France, after 124 days of captivity in Iraq, George Malbrunot tells with the Barber his test, since his capture on August 20 on the road between Baghdad and Nadjaf until the emotion which it felt by finding to them his. Retained captive, with Christian Chesnot of RFI and their Syrian driver Mohammed Al-Joundi, by the Islamic Army in Iraq, our collaborator describes the reports/ratios which the hostages sought to draw up with their kidnappers to try cause a drop in the tension. Hot, it tells the transfers of a place of detention to another, the interrogations and the few bits which it could seize from what occurred in the external world. It describes finally its release and its relief when it was between the hands of the French authorities.

[jbnow]

22. You can put each page

Into google transloator and get full pages.
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

[Gasping4Truth]

30. Sorry it took so long

to respond. Been away all that time. Unfortunately, the link to the article doesn't work anymore.

[merwin]

7. This doesn't suprise me one bit n/t

[Gman]

12. Assuming OBL acted of his own free will and was not bribed

or bought off, reelecting Bush was the main motivation for his video. Of course, its very possible OBL had cut a deal with Bushco for the video too. In either event, reelecting Bush was the plan.

[leftchick]

13. Gman....

please tell me that photo is fake. Please... :puke:

[Gman]

15. LOL! You mean you don't do this every morning as required???

Actually, I got the pic here: http://www.liegirls.com/flash.html

Caution: For mature audiences!

[coreystone]

19. The Bush "re-selection" seems to only have solidified rebels' cause.

"'We want Bush because with him the American troops will stay in Iraq and that way we will be able to develop,' Malbrunot cited the captor as saying.

Bush beat Democrat John Kerry to win the presidency last month."


I remember some spins that the MSM did regarding the Europeans and other world communities subtly, and sometimes overtly suggesting a preference for Kerry.

WELL! We have the OBL tape. The reports from the "freedom reporters", or should that be "patriot reporters" from France, indicate that their captors had stated to them a preference for Bush. I believe that I realistically arrive at the conclusion that the "antagonistic" foreign policy of this administration has delivered a the mandate of the Iraqi rebels in supporting the Bush voters of 2004!

That certainly is some "grassroots" political machine Rove is running.



:crazy:

[TahitiNut]

21. I really don't know how anything could be more obvious.

The corrupt codependency between "The War on Drugs" and the Drug Cartels (both Colombian and pharmacorporate) as well as between the Busholini Reich and al-Qae'da Inc. (et. al.) is so obvious as to require almost no thought whatsoever. I really don't know how any sane person could see it otherwise.
:shrug:

The French for it is: raison d'etre. (or something like that)

[coreystone]

23. French Journalist Story is Hitting MSM......on MSNBC UPCOMING..

AS OF 2:15 PM (EST)!

[coreystone]

24. Sorry! A 20 second blurb! But, better than nothing!.....EOM

[leftchick]

25. perhaps once rummy runs out of xmas cheer....

they may report it. Then again I highly doubt it.

[radar]

26. He makes people around the world feel safer

...When he's in charge.

Granted, these are the guys that shouldn't be feeling better with the chimp in charge - but why quibble about the technicalities? Just do like the big media and hide the details in the fine print.

[Skittles]

28. Bush is the best thing to ever happen to terrorists

they have increased their ranks since that bastard stole the election

[Gasping4Truth]

31. And terrorists, real or imagined

were the best thing to happen to Bush. They could boost his approval rate when everything else failed.

[Cocoa]

29. RWers said insurgents preferred Kerry

they said it with absolutely no evidence. MediaMatters.org documented all the whores who spouted that line.

Well, here's some evidence that it was more likely what many of us at DU thought was more likely, that they preferred Bush.

[Stevious]

32. Who would Osama vote for? n/t