That lady can bargain, can't she?
December 29, 2005
Here's one you won't likely see in American papers: turns out that the German archeologist whose freedom from her Arab 'kidnappers' new German chancellor Andrea Merkel bought by releasing the jailed terrorist torturer and murderer of an American in 1985 from his life sentence, won't be coming back to the Vaterland after all.
The Times of London reports that it is "widely believed" that Merkel's government paid a ransom as well.
So what did Frau Merkel get for her trouble, and at the cost of infuriating the Americans she got elected in part to try to restore good relations with? Well, she didn't get Susanne Osthoff, the 43-year old archeologist whose release she did all this to secure. Ms. Osthoff has announced that she will be staying in Iraq, thank you very much. It seems that, long before she was 'captured' by terrorists last month, she converted to Islam and married a local bedouin. She says she plans (get this...) to set up a "German cultural centre" in Arbil, where she will be settling down.
Her terrorist captors are said to be glad to be rid of her, which certainly sounds odd if one is to believe that theirs was a good faith kidnapping, so to speak; indeed, it's not too much of a leap to suppose that the whole thing was all just a ploy to get a terrorist released, and maybe some money, too.
Merkel is said to be furious. This was supposed to be a big feather in the cap of her new government, after all, a proud foreign policy triumph. But that's what's likely to happen when you trust, and deal with, Islamist terrorists, rather than killing them, as we have spent the last several years trying to convince our German 'allies'.
And the Europeans all say that we can't be trusted. If there weren't one more terrorist murderer running around on account of it all, it'd be a pretty good laugh. top
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