Let's hope that this isn't TRUE

[kenny J]

Kidnapping is now the crime of choice among gangsters in Baghdad.

Colonel Feisal Ali, a veteran Baghdad policeman, said: "Criminals who used to steal gold and jewellery now specialise in kidnapping because it is easier and more profitable. Some actually maintain their own private prisons."

Even the very moderately wealthy in Baghdad are terrified that kidnappers will strike at them or their families. They drive their children to school fearing that, otherwise, they will be seized at the school bus stop. Some of the richer businessmen have sent their children out of the country to Jordan or the Gulf.

Col Ali, the head of the anti-kidnap unit of the Iraqi police - which has 17 officers and 15 men - said that kidnapping really got under way in June.

Criminals, many of them released by Saddam Hussein under an amnesty in 2002, realised that the police force had collapsed. He said: "Before the war, kidnapping made up only about 1 per cent of serious crime, but now it is 70 per cent." Even criminals themselves are not safe. Col Ali said he had arrested a man the previous day who confessed to having kidnapped another criminal who had looted a bank during the fall of Baghdad in April. He only released the bank robber in return for $10,000 (£5,400).

Kidnappers have also become more professional. They often insist that the family of the kidnap victim purchase a Thuraya satellite telephone through which to conduct negotiations, because the call is impossible for the Baghdad police to trace.

Many of the victims are children. Eleven-year-old Sara was grabbed as she waited for a bus and held in a room with four other kidnap victims while kidnappers asked her father for $20,000, later reduced to $5,000. She was released but is traumatised by the experience.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=481314

[mcsap]

Happens frequently in Central/South America where there aren't any stron governments.

[kenny J]

Happens frequently in Central/South America where there aren't any strong governments

mcsap,

Yes I understand this. My concern is for the IRAQI perception of the US occupation and transition as viewed from within. It is far easier to recruit militants to fight against our soliders when people are scared and justice is scarce... If the situation is not as bad as it was reported(which is most likely), this still is not good news. This type of report is somewhat understandable at this stage but I imagine you'd agree that it is important that "things" need to get tightened up soon...

After all it is the INTERNAL perception which will deeply impact the future of the democratic IDEALS we engender there.

ken

[mcsap]

I spent a month in Guatemala in the late 70's when Americans were prize targets for kidnapping.

Until you are out of the USA and living in another country , it is hard to comprehend other cultures. Democracy and a sense of justice and security will not come quickly or easliy to a country which has had none of these things in quite a while.

[kenny J]

mcsap,

My brother "worked" for the US government in Honduras throughout the 80's and I am well aware of how AMERICA sometimes forces it's agenda on less powerful governments...

Until you are out of the USA and living in another country , it is hard to comprehend other cultures

Yes that is partially why I see AMERICA in the way I do. I hate to say it but I have been in countries that apply the BENEFITS democracy and justice for much more of their citizenry than the US seems to be doing. Healthcare being one example.

Democracy and a sense of justice and security will not come quickly or easliy to a country which has had none of these things in quite a while.

Exactly... The fighting in IRAQ will continue for a LONG LONG TIME... Sadly the larger repercussions of our ACTIONS wil be a call to action for the terrorist minded around the world.

Yet both of these directly benefit the military industrial complex which had serious problems FINDING credible and enduring enemies since the COLD WAR...

Ken

[Sgt. Pepper]

That was a warning to my brother when he was in Ft Bliss not to go to Mexico looking like a solider or he had a good chance of being kidnapped by Cartel members, he said they would pay the ransom but he had to work it off. So it happens.