Re: <nettime> Who seized Simona Torretta?

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com>]

Matteo Pasquinelli wrote:

>italian movement and political situation are frozen by this kidnapping.
>
>counter-detections are reaching the mainstream surface, not of the italian
>media of course. we hope in liberation: conspiracy (?) theories mean
>always the
>worst scenario. /m
>
>follow related fallout on:
>http://news.google.com/news?&q=3Dwho+seized+simona+torretta
>_ _ _
>
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1305624,00.html
>http://www.nologo.org/
>
>Who seized Simona Torretta?
>
>This Iraqi kidnapping has the mark of an undercover police operation
>
>Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill
>Thursday September 16, 2004
>The Guardian
>
>Nothing about this kidnapping fits the pattern of other abductions. Most are
>opportunistic attacks on treacherous stretches of road. Torretta and her
>colleagues were coldly hunted down in their home.

That's not true. The other day three contractors - two USers, one Brit - 
were kidnapped from their homes.

>And then there were the weapons. The attackers were armed with AK-47s,
>shotguns, pistols with silencers and stun guns - hardly the mujahideen's
>standard-issue rusty Kalashnikovs.

Aren't AK-47s and Kalashnikovs the same thing?
<http://kalashnikov.guns.ru/> And isn't Iraq loaded with weapons all
over the place?

> Strangest of all is this detail: witnesses
>said that several attackers wore Iraqi National Guard uniforms and identified
>themselves as working for Ayad Allawi, the interim prime minister.

And if that were true, they'd advertise it to everyone? This makes no 
sense.

>What we do know is this: if this hostage-taking ends in bloodshed, Washington,
>Rome and their Iraqi surrogates will be quick to use the tragedy to
>justify the
>brutal occupation - an occupation that Simona Torretta, Simona Pari, Raad Ali
>Abdul Azziz and Mahnouz Bassam risked their lives to oppose. And we will be
>left wondering whether that was the plan all along.

There have been something like 100 kidnappings in Iraq - why should this 
one stand out as any more brutal or politically influential than the 
others? Is it because they're "our" kind of people rather than Sri Lankan 
truck drivers or helicopter technicians from the U.S. midwest?

This article seems like a series of speculations and leading questions 
strung together without any convincing political narrative behind it.

-- 

Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
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New York NY 10013-2505 USA
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