JCC JediWarrior And Connemara Missing In Afghanistan (Update: What a ****show.)

Well if you insist.

Your theory is a bit thin.

I have put forward a view that Boyle naïvely assumed his status vis-a-vis his first marriage would have made him "friendly" in the eyes of the Taliban, a tragic miscalculation that lead him to understate the danger. But to suggest he converted and it went to hell, and the US views him as a threat?

Hell of a leap to make. Suggests a lot of time in TV/movie land, not a lot of time in real world land.

 

Ok, I can agree with the part where he thought he'd be on good terms via his marriage, but I think there was a bit of idealism there, maybe as much as I have going on.

 

Also there's coverage that speaks to his parents; http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/boyle-family-video-afghanistan-captivity-1.3907378

It's just that American interest is often exclusively on Americans.

 

Okay. What are you basing that on?

 

Your initial view is a hell of a leap also.

 

Diggy, Mrsvos accepted that's a flimsy premise.

EDIT: how, Diggy?

Let's explore what we know - there are blogs cited in this thread that state people who saw them knew they planned to go to the unsafe North, they were aware it was unsafe but undeterred.

So either they didn't understand unsafe and were spectacularly stupid, or they did not consider themselves at risk.

It's not the first time I've seen people express an opinion that, based on their general tolerance for or respect towards Islam, they wouldn't be seen as an enemy of Islam and therefore they would be fine to travel through northern Pakistan or Patani province or, yes, Afghanistan. They were either Christian missionary types, who are probably dead; or ridiculously politically correct types that would decry misogyny but refuse to discuss misogyny in Islam.

Let's just bear in mind that JediWarrior's first wife, Zaynab Khadr (her brother was at Gitmo), bragged that Usama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri attended her wedding to Yacoub al-Bahr.

So you see why there's not much of a stretch here? You know how he met Khadr right?

 

How did he meet Khadr?

 

I don't think Conne "turned" to religion, she was pretty staunchly Catholic when she was posting here.

 

He wrote to her and offered support in their fight to have her brother released.

EDIT: ok jp-30 however it was in response to a Diggy post which you missed. Saying her parents were praying for release.

 

They're probably staunchly Catholic too.

And yeah, I tend to gloss over Digger's posts, y'know?

 

Are they really missing in Afghanistan now?

 

Yes. Since 2012.

 

Go back to sleep gersh.

 

I love you too, **** chops

 

In my interactions with her (both online and in person), she indicated that she was a fairly observant Catholic. I noticed that she was rarely online on Sundays, but there could have been other reasons for that.

With regard to her and JW having knowingly ventured into areas known to be unsafe: when I met Caitlan at Celebration 3 (she is the one who convinced me to go in the first place), she was all smiles, all the time. She was very friendly to everyone she met, perhaps too much, even to a few people who appeared to be playing her for a sucker. She had a friend who was a member here at one time (SaintOfAllKillers, I believe) who was tagging along with her most of the time. She had told me that he ran low on gas and needed cash to get home. I had no way of knowing his situation, but I gave him $5 just to make him stop. In spite of all that, she seemed to me to genuinely care about anyone and everyone she met while giving them the benefit of the doubt. I've always had a hard time trusting people and so this trait of Caitlan's in always assuming the best of people stuck out in my mind. I suspect that it is something that both her and JW have in common and is very likely what lead them into this mess in the first place.

 

There's nothing inherently wrong with giving people the benefit of the doubt...but there's a difference between parting with $5 and risking life and limb to journey to a warzone filled with anti-Western zealots...

 

Totally agree. We may never know what their rationale for even thinking about going there was, but I suspect that the tendency to look for the best in people regardless of the situation is still the most likely reason. When you're wearing rose colored glasses, all of the red flags just look like flags.

 

What do red flags look like if you aren't wearing rose-coloured glasses?

 

red flags

 

Oh lordy its this thread again. I'm glad they're at least still alive....and that's about the only positive I can think of right now.
I had talked briefly to Conne once or twice (what I remember the most was on the old messageboards, she used Nermal as her holiday icon), and she was always sweet to me,

Spoiler: I'm going to say something negative and maybe overly-harsh about someone in a bad situation, so I'm throwing this up for anyone who doesn't want to see it.

and I honestly got the impression that she was far too naive and trusting of other people.
I blame JW for their current situation. It seems to me they met, she fell head over heels in love with him, and when he decided to go on a half-baked mercy mission/vacation/whatever to the Earth's armpit, she being happily and naively in love, went along with it without actually stopping to think about any possible consequences.

 

Spoiler

Okay but I mean, how can anyone be that naive? Don't they hear about what the Taliban do? Even if someone assumes the best of this bunch of people, you'd still have to realize that they're highly, highly misguided and wouldn't hesitate to act on their distorted view of the world.

 

Let's pretend you're right.

What does it matter now?

 

Wow, this is the first time I saw this. I met up with her at C3 and we used to chat on AIM all the time, though it's been many many years since I talked with her.

This is her, right? Found it in my photos from C3.

 

No its not. And are those two men discussing how to steal that car?

 

Hmm I'm pretty sure I had a photo with her from C3, but maybe I lost that one?? The few I had on my computer were scans.