Susanne Osthoff: The Happy Hostage

Based on this interview one might well question the psychological status of former hostage Susanne Osthoff:

'My kidnappers were not criminals'

A former German hostage who spent 24 days in the hands of unknown captors in Iraq has said that her kidnappers were not criminals and had demanded humanitarian aid for Sunni Arab regions.

Speaking to the Al-Jazeera satellite channel, Susanne Osthoff said her captors told her not to be afraid as her kidnapping was "politically motivated".

"Do not be afraid. We do not harm women or children and you are a Muslim," she quoted them as saying. "I was so happy to know that I had not fallen into the hands of criminals."

Osthoff, a Muslim convert and Arabic speaker, said her captors demanded German humanitarian aid for Iraq's Sunni Arabs and stated clearly that they did not want a ransom.

"They said we don't want money ... Maybe we want from Germany ... hospitals and schools in the Sunni triangle [area northwest of Baghdad], and they would like to get money in the form of humanitarian aid."

She described her captors as "poor people" and said that she "cannot blame them for kidnapping her, as they cannot enter [Baghdad's heavily fortified] Green Zone to kidnap Americans."

She said she lived with her captors in a clean place and that they treated her "well". ...

Susanne Osthoff and friends

This has got to be another evil trick by Bush&Rumsfeld Inc. - incapacitating Iraqi terrorists ability to kidnap Americans by not allowing them to enter the Green Zone! Shocking!

BTW... there is a suspicion - probably never to be proven - that Osthoff was released in exchange for Hizbollah terrorist Mohammad Ali Hammadi, convicted of killing Navy diver Robert Stethem in Beirut during the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight.

Oh, and Mrs. Osthoff contemplates a return to Iraq in the near future (her subsequent kidnapping is a safe bet if terrorists are still not permitted to enter the Green zone).

Are there any other Arab killers of U.S. military personel in German prisons?

You know, just in case...

Update: Great assortment of comments at LGF. My favorite: "Give her back ... I know that they don't give refunds but maybe the Germans can get store credit."

Comments

[Sleepy]

Somehow, I figured as much...

[PacRim Jim]

Perhaps she was part of a plan to get the hostage released?

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

She's a muslim convert and uses her old name????

-- Maybe we want from Germany ... hospitals and schools in the Sunni triangle [area northwest of Baghdad], and they would like to get money in the form of humanitarian aid."--

Stop killing US and we'll build them. What maroons.

[playertwo]

its all opinions and budgets riight?
then they start pulling this. germany is showing her cards here. thanks for the honesty.
reminds me of gaddafi bankrolling pilipino abu sayyaf gang with 11m ransom pay-off.
obvious enemy trick. she be in jail now with italo-commie chick.

[czekmark`]

Yeah, we really want Germany to help rebuild Iraq when they were one of the countries that helped prop up Saddam in oil for food progrsms. As far as Susanne is concerned: just another useful idiot for the terrorists.

[joe]

Terrorists in Iraq kidnap a German citizen.

Merkel says Germany will not be “blackmailed”.

Germany government releases terrorist who murdered an American service member.

Terrorist in Iraq release German once murderer is freed in safe surroundings.

German government says they did not exchange murderer for hostage.

So the question is why was the German hostage released?

1 The Iraqi terrorists were caught up in the spirit of Christmas
2 German Crisis Management team are excellent negotiators.
3 Germany paid a ransom.
4 Germany traded murderer for hostage
5 Germany government plot as payback against US.

Germans have to believe Reason 2. They have no choice. This is what their leaders have told them. Believing Reason 2 helps explain a nation whose citizens were responsible for the deaths of more than 77 million people in the 20th Century.

For those who are not German Reasons 1 and 2 can be eliminated.

This still leaves 3 other reasonable and believable choices to consider.

[jlwb]

Questions:
If a ransom was paid, how many other people will be killed? The money may buy explosives.
Will this encourage more kidnapping?
(rhetorical questions!)

I have, and will again, suggest that some just want to be the last one eaten! What will they do when they ARE the last ones left on the table?

Each and every night I say a pray for our service members! We may not deserve them, but, I am so gratefull we have them!
jlwb

[Sock Puppet of Doom]

It would be pretty simple for Iraq to bar entry to anyone from a nation suspected of negotiating with terrorists. That would be of course France Germany and Italy. Those nations that negotiate with terrorists are no friends of Iraq.

[Panther33]

"Perhaps she was part of a plan to get the hostage released?" I suspect (but cannot prove) that Ms. Osthoff was a willing "victim" who participated in a staged kidnapping to help the cause. Even if this was proven, would the German government care? I wonder.

[Roncesvalles]

I remain adamant: That awful woman was part of a plot. The German government does care but would never admit to have been taken for a ride.

[Scout]

Strangely, even among the leftist crowd in Germany (to which I am unfortunately often exposed...) the numbers who seriously believe that Ostroff was an innocent victim are dwindling. Maybe they are just in a Feuerpause, still looking for a way to blame it on Bush.

[S1IG]

Some understanding by Claudia Roth for Osthoff...

[Doughnut Boy Andy]

"They said we don't want money ... Maybe we want from Germany ... hospitals and schools in the Sunni triangle [area northwest of Baghdad], and they would like to get money in the form of humanitarian aid."

This is extremely strange I think. Rather than demanding that the West gets the hell out of Iraq or faces death as usual, they are actually demanding that the West gets into Iraq and helps the rebuilding process. In this sense I agree! Why should the USA take all the risks and pay all the bills. The countries that were ripping off the Iraqis through the oil for food programme and supporting Saddam in the process should pay. Get out the cheque books Old Europe and friends. Surely this isnt what a kidnapping group are demanding? Can anyone shed any light on this? *confused looks*

[Carl Spackler]

The story, report, whatever, presents information. Which being from journalists may, or may not be accurate, full, and true. Then, we add the dear lady, whom I bet dollars to donuts, is a nutter. Then we have the um, ladynappers, who aren’t kidnappers, really they’re humanitarians, who just happen to stop cars with Kalashnikovs, kidnap people, imprison people, and then take pictures of them in the usual pre beheading pose, Allah -be praised, with the usual decorations of Soviet light weapons and the dated leftist black masks. So, these people are at minimum, armed nutters.

To sum up, usual lousy reporting of nutters, kidnapping nutters.

All the above is put aside, and most everyone involved (I speaking of the German government, press dolts…) act as if they are dealing with reality.

Now where are we? A nutter lady, nutter criminals, nutter government and nutter press.

And people ask me why I drink. I think I’ll have one now, others are free to join.

[Scott_H]

Her kidnappers aren't "criminals," she says. How's that for an oxymoron. After uttering nonsense like that, no reasonably intelligent person could take anything she says seriously. Then again, some seemingly reasonably intelligent people seem to amaze me with their idiocy.

[Doughnut Boy Andy]

"And people ask me why I drink. I think I’ll have one now, others are free to join."

Cheers Carl.

[Liberalism is a mental disorder]

Amazing...simply amazing..they are not criminals but kidnap, they have RPG's but are not criminals, they take a hostage, then release her

Something stinks here, and it isnt the mouldy haji underarms

I say this whole thing was staged.

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

OT: SUCKERS!
via Bros. Judd:

Most of Europe, which has criticized the United States over its stance on global warming, looks set to miss a set of goals to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol, a study revealed on Tuesday.

The findings by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) will make embarrassing reading for European governments that have berated Washington for its refusal to ratify the United Nations pact.

Of 15 countries in Europe signed up to Kyoto, only Britain and Sweden were on target to meet their commitments on reducing harmful gas emissions by 2012, said the IPPR, Britain's leading progressive think tank.

http://www.spacedaily.com/2005/051227111901.9nvb6ur0.html

[joe]

To a larger segment of the citizens of Germany they are not criminals. They are freedom fighters.

One need not look at any more evidence than the Germans support for the PLO and its various terrorist organizations. The killing of women and childern is considered to be a "legal form" of warfare.

[joe]

Sandy P

Oh those shifting sands of morality.

[Scout]

Oh, honestly, Sandy. After all, we've NEVER talked about Kyoto on this blog before, have we? ;-)

[FranzisM]

Japanese hostages are just like that.

[LC Mamapajamas]

@ScottH Her kidnappers aren't "criminals," she says. How's that for an oxymoron. After uttering nonsense like that, no reasonably intelligent person could take anything she says seriously. Then again, some seemingly reasonably intelligent people seem to amaze me with their idiocy.

Hmmph... great minds think alike! I was about to post the same thing, in almost the same words.

Oxymoron? LOL! I thought kidnapping WAS criminal all by itself! Their "good intentions" notwithstanding, you know what the road to hell is paved with!

[Pamela]

Frau Osthoff must have had a really good time. She wants to go back. And set up a German cultural center. I think Germany should let her.
Angela Merkel’s new Government, which regards the freeing of Frau Osthoff this month as its first foreign policy triumph, is furious. It made huge efforts to secure her release and is widely believed to have paid a ransom.

It has now blocked all funding for her project and has told her that she should leave the region immediately. She is believed currently to be in Jordan, with her 12-year-old daughter, preparing to return.

In any event, I doubt she'll be welcome back in Germany any time soon.

The article notes also that she was released on Dec 18 - and has yet to phone her mother.

snort

[steve]

Frau Osthoff is either a shill for the Sunni insurgency ("They aren't criminals"--though they kidnapped her) or she is suffering from the world's most easily diagnosed case of the "Stockholm Syndrome" since Patty Hearst was talked into robbing banks for the Symbianese Liberation Army way back in the 70s.

[wolfrock]

The whole thing about Ms Osthoff is absolutely insane.

susanne-osthoff.de

Collecting money to enable Ms Osthoff a fresh start when she returns to Germany. Well, obviously she is not returning to Germany, so they should transfer the money
to the government as payback for the ransom.

More likely this is a cheap trick of the family and friends to exploit the story for their own (financial) purposes.

[wolfrock]

read this interview with Ms Osthoff and you know that she has
a serious mental problem

Interview in 'heute'-news

[Scout]

She just appeared on ZDF. Unbelievable.

[alexander_c_b]

After reading the interview I have to presume that she must be suffering from a serious shock or trauma, maybe lack of sleep or drug exposition. Something is really wrong here. I wonder if there were mental problems before her kidnapping, or if this is a direct consequence of it. Weird... the talk about Israeli secret service agents and so on... I really don't know what to make of this, and what's offered on the media on this issue probably has no value at all.

[Cosmo]

They want hospitals, do they?

USAID, together with the Iraqi Ministry of Health, UNICEF and the WHO have renovated 110 primary health care centers and provided basic clinical and laboratory equipment to support the delivery of essential primary health care services to 600 primary health care centers.
They've provided skills training for 2,500 primary health care providers and 700 physicians. Trained 2,000 health educators, teachers, religious leaders and youth to mobilize communities on hygiene, diarrhea, breastfeeding, nutrition and immunization issues. They've re-established the national disease surveillance system, and the immunization stats are particularly impressive, too.

And so on, and so on. And they'd get even more of it, much faster, if psycopaths like these 'kidnappers' and their enablers would just get out of the way.

Here's the link: http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/accomplishments/health.html
But since the info comes directly from USAID, I'm sure it will all be dismissed as bullshit.

[FranzisM]

This "Mohammed al Mohammed" whom she thanks in the interview as the second most important person after Gerhard Schröder, is that the character from the Quran or a contemporary individual?

[Doug]

@Carl - bottoms up

@Joe -
To a larger segment of the citizens of Germany they are not criminals. They are freedom fighters.

That's because they don't seem to have figured out that 'freedom fighters' are people who fight in favor of freedom, not against it. Masked jihadis seeking to impose a global caliphate and sharia tyranny aren't looking to usher in any sort of freedom, hence the confusion.

[joe]

Doug,

I can see how this might both confuse and make the Germans a bit grumpy, given they have never once fought for freedom, their own or anyone else's.