Freedom Folks

Thursday, March 23, 2006

CPT Celebrates "Release" of Captives in Chicago

Welcome Michelle Malkin readers!

There was honking. There was singing. There was praying. There was dancing. There were signs, strollers, speakers, and there were shoes. Lots of shoes.

Jake and I just got back from what Christian Peacemaker Teams earlier billed as "Celebrate -- peacemakers released," although they have now changed it to read "peacemakers freed." More on that later.

I read this on Michelle Malkin's site on my lunchbreak today, about the press release issued by CPT -- after Coalition troops rescued the three captives -- that made no mention of the troops heroism and, in fact, repeatedly referred to the captives having been released, not rescued.

I popped over to the CPT website and read about the celebration, called Jake, and we made plans to check it out. Following is a pictorial of the event (with commentary, of course!)...


There were small clusters of people scattered down the block with signs like these. Then there were some like this one...

...that didn't make any sense to me, and this one...

...which was colorful but ???, and this one...

because it's never too early to start your kids on a healthy diet of anti-American sentiment, and this one...

...that really left me scratching my head. Then there were sights like this one...

...that came as a surprise to, well, no one. I'm sure she wore more than a scanty pink slip because it's March in Chicago and it was starting to snow. But we all breathed a sigh of relief.

On the other side of the street, where the celebration would take place in the park, the sidewalk was lined with shoes and crosses. Each pair of shoes had a name affixed, and a sign stated that they were to represent "the 100,000 Iraqis killed."

We ended up having a long talk with Sara, who is part of CPT. She said that the phones had been ringing off the hook today with people calling to express their anger over the lack of acknowledgement of the troops' role in freeing the CPT workers. May I just say HUZZAH?

Here's a picture of the group leading a song in which they sang for courage...for the captives, each by name, for the soldiers, for the detainees, and for the CAPTORS. Yes, that's right -- you heard it here, folks -- they sang a song asking God for courage for the captors.

We heard about the the peacemakers. We heard about the war. We heard lots of talk about the "release" with a few references to the "freeing," but still no talk of the rescue.

What I've chosen to end with is an image of all the flags that were flapping in the cold Chicago night, honoring our country and the brave troops who rescued three people who were in Iraq to hinder their mission and their service:










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