CBS News journalist Richard Butler doesn't know who kidnapped him (for some two months), but he thinks it was some Iraqi policemen who are sympathetic to, of all folks, Hezbollah:
Butler, a British journalist kidnapped with his interpreter on Feb. 10, was rescued by Iraqi troops on April 14 when he was found with a sack over his head in a house in Basra.
He was taken from a hotel room in Basra, where he was on a trip to meet the chief of staff for anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Men wearing police fatigue uniforms and armed with AK-47's hustled him out of the room and into a car. He was first taken to a police station in Basra and then was held in different places — including three nights where he was sealed into a small room between two walls, he said.
While he was held, he heard a lot of Hezbollah propaganda video and Hezbollah ringtones on mobile phones, but he can't be sure his captors were affiliated with the organization.
As time went on, his captors treated him better, but he was still held with a sack over his head and arm restraints. He eventually got the sense that his captors didn't intend to kill him, and had backed themselves into a corner.
There were points that he thought he was going to die, the first when he was taken from the police station, Butler said.
"I was aware that we were driving out into a quieter area," he said. "I couldn't tell exactly where we were going, but I was aware that there were no more streetlights, for instance, and there were no more dogs barking. You didn't hear any cars. So I thought we were being taken out into the desert and, you know, we were just being shot in the desert."
So, Butler constantly had a sack over his head, had on arm restraints, and thought he was going to die on several occasions. Given that he believed his captors were related to Hezbollah, this would be a most logical fear. But, according to Butler, it could have been worse:
Butler said he felt it was better to be kidnapped in Iraq then [sic] taken into custody by Americans in Afghanistan.
"I was pleased I wasn't being mortarboarded in Guantanamo or being held for six and a half years like an Al-Jazeera cameraman, for instance," he said.
And there you have it. The oft-repeated canard about "mortarboarding" (isn't it "waterboarding?") even though only the most wanted and deadliest terror suspects have been subjected to it, and even then less times than the number of fingers on one's hand.
I wonder how many journalists would prefer the situation Butler literally endured (he lost 42 pounds and only ate four hard boiled eggs and a tangerine during one two-week span of his captivity) to that of Gitmo detainees who "endure" religiously appropriate three squares a day, ample exercise, and air conditioned quarters
Only those with an ideological axe to grind, I'd wager.
(h/t to NB reader mitchflorida.)
