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| Europe |
| Italy demos ’win hostage safety’ |
| 2004-05-01 |
| Saturday, 1 May, 2004, 11:32 GMT 12:32 UK Three Italian hostages in Iraq have been saved from harm by The Arabic TV channel quoted a statement saying that Thursday’s protests had satisfied the A fourth Italian was murdered soon after the group was seized. There was no immediate confirmation of the authenticity of Saturday’s statement. "They are telling the Italian people that they appreciate how the Italian people went onto the streets and now they are not going to harm the hostages Prisoner demand Al-Jazeera said the statement also called on the Italian government to seek the release of "political prisoners" held in prison in Kurdish areas of Iraq. References to the statement were later dropped from al-Jazeera bulletins. Anyone got a read on this? The first statement, threatening the hostages with death, was sent to al-Arabiya television station. The three men, Salvatore Stefio, Umberto Cupertino and Maurizio Agliana were captured on 12 April outside Baghdad, where they were working as security guards for a private US firm. Their colleague Fabrizio Quattrocchi What a relief. At least they call Quattrocchi’s death a "murder" and not an "execution." It’s hard not to be thankful that Quattrocchi did not have to witness this latest Italian epidemic of Spanish-Fly-From-Danger. It goes beyond belief that the Italian people could be gulled so easily into believing that any cooperation with terrorists will bear anything but poisoned fruit. Have they not learned a single lesson from fighting the Mafia? |
| Posted by:Zenster |
| #11 Dayum, Zipster...we were kinda hoping you'd found greener troll pastures for yourself and your kind than RB. Haven't learned your lesson yet? And no nation with any sense negotiates with terrorists who take hostages. |
| Posted by: Jen 2004-05-01 7:35:14 PM |
| #10 Ok, so a few thousand marched. The usual suspects who would have marched against a can of beans if it had an American flag on it. Spain, it is not. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-05-01 7:28:41 PM |
| #9 Man, you guys don't have a heart at all. Imagine telling the captives "sorry, we couldn't organize 150 people to protest, soooo, you're just going to have take the bullet". Zenster, c'mon man. You honestly think the kidnappers have any political clout because 150 people protested??? |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-05-01 7:27:00 PM |
| #8 Uh, weren't there a grand total of about 150 people at the "protest"? This picture seems to have more than a few hundred people in it. The article claims, "... the hostages' families led a peace march of several thousand people to the Vatican". "A few thousand people marched from Rome's Castel Sant'Angelo toward St. Peter's, many waving rainbow flags emblazoned with the word Pace, or Peace. The march was comparatively small compared with previous anti-war marches; one before the war drew about one million people." |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-05-01 7:23:35 PM |
| #7 150 people. Didn't we just declare the Az march for Moslem's to stand up to terrorism (with only about 300 people) to be a "complete failure" and "total disaster"?? |
| Posted by: someone 2004-05-01 6:42:23 PM |
| #6 Uh, weren't there a grand total of about 150 people at the "protest"? Looks like all it took were a few extended Italian families, some poster board and some paint. |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2004-05-01 6:29:56 PM |
| #5 I dunno. If protesting was all it took to get people released from captivity, I'd do it. That's an easy demand to fulfil. Do you honestly think that delivering up global publicity to the hostages' captors is going to deter them from making continued demands of ever-increasing severity? What has been "fulfilled" by these demonstrations, save proving to the kidnappers that they now have putative political clout? The lessons of Spain seem to be lost upon so many. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-05-01 4:48:26 PM |
| #4 Maybe you're on to something, Rafael. Under the doctrine of moral equivalency, we would be justified in turning the situation around: round up 50 or so assorted chomskyites and Reuters fans and threaten to shoot them if the people of Europe don't launch massive pro-American demonstrations. I made the same sort of proposal for some Spanish style electioneering in France a while back. Then again, demonstrations in Europe are hardly likely to help us. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2004-05-01 4:40:37 PM |
| #3 I dunno. If protesting was all it took to get people released from captivity, I'd do it. That's an easy demand to fulfil. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-05-01 4:27:12 PM |
| #2 It seems to me that this forced degradation of several thousand Italians is worse in scale if not nature than the humiliation of a few suspected terrorists in Baghdad. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2004-05-01 4:24:52 PM |
| #1 According to AFP.... "... several thousand people took to the streets of Rome to back demands for their release and to protest against the war in Iraq. "Arrangements for the march were made before Italy's main unions refused on Tuesday to yield to demands from the kidnappers that the traditional May 1 labour marches be turned into protests against the presence of Italian troops in the US-led occupation force in Iraq." I dunno, Zenster. But this does not sound like wholsesale capitulation on the part of the Italians to me! No doubt, just the same old nihilist moonbats who hate the War, the IMF, their moms and dads, etc. etc. etc. |
| Posted by: WUZZALIB 2004-05-01 4:20:49 PM |