I understand having a no negotiation policy with terrorists, however I think we need to start, we are losing this war and this guy is goona die. My feeling is maybe we should discuss how we can all live together, and if that doesn't work, then nuke these bastards. Too many innocent people are dying, and as an American I blame some (very few) of these deaths on our policies.
They did start this war but we need to step back and see how we can really win because our current method isn't working. JMO.
Paul Johnson, 49, of Stafford Township, New Jersey, was abducted on Saturday by a group calling itself "Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula". The organisation is believed to be headed by al-Qaida's chief in the kingdom, Abd Allah Aziz al-Muqrin.
A hooded man read a statement on the tape which was released on Tuesday. As he was reading, a subtitle on the screen identified him as al-Muqrin.
His statement was similar to a printed message on the Web site that carried the name of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. It said the group gave Saudi authorities 72 hours to release "mujahadeen" fighters or it would kill the hostage.
The tape, which was first aired by CNN, showed Johnson sitting in a chair with his profile to the camera, a large tattoo on his left arm. It displayed his Lockheed Martin identification card. Johnson was employed by the American defense giant and worked on Apache helicopters.
No negotiation
Adil al-Jubair, foreign affairs adviser to the Saudi government, said shortly after the video appeared that the kingdom would consult with the US administration about how to proceed, but Riyadh like Washington has a strict no-negotiation policy.
Paul Johnson's ID was posted
on the internet
"We don't negotiate with terrorists. We don't negotiate with hostage-takers," al-Jubair said in an interview on CNN.
Al-Jubair denounced the hostage-takers, but said it was premature to be able to verify any of the information on the video, saying, "We can't simply go with what appears on Web sites."
"It shows the cruel and inhumane face of the enemy we're dealing with," al-Jubair said.
Falluja Brigade
The statement on the Web site says the holy warriors of the Arabian peninsula's Falluja Brigade has "hit" the engineering team that "oversees the development of the American Apache helicopter that attacks Muslims in Palestine and Afghanistan."
"We can't simply go with what appears on Web sites"
Adil al-Jubair,
Foreign affairs adviser to the Saudi government
It says: "The Falluja Brigade has killed the director of this team and kidnapped one of its engineers, Paul Johnson, and if the tyrannical Saudi government wants their American master to be released, then they have to release our holy warriors that are held in Hair, Ruweis and Alisha prisons within 72 hours of this statement's date."
The day Johnson was seized, armed dissidents shot dead another American, Kenneth Scroggs, from Laconia, New Hampshire, in his garage. Scroggs was the third Westerner killed in a week. An Irish cameraman for the BBC was shot to death on 6 June and another American was killed in his garage on 8 June.
Saudi security forces arrested an armed dissident north of Riyadh on Tuesday as they stepped up their presence in and around the city in a hunt for Johnson's kidnappers.
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Originally Posted by chicamahomico
Also the weather channel in the AM. Its just too depressing.
An American willing to leave everything to work in the Middle East amongst angry Arabs is still an American... a **** good one at that. That poor guy was just trying to help, working in an f'ed up place and got too nieve and paid the ultimate price. But good Americans are getting killed all the time. Trust me, it ain't the easiest society to try and live in - ain't nothing like the US...
