David Rohde & Kristen Mulvihill: "A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-12-02/david-rohde-kristen-mulvihill-rope-and-prayer-kidnapping-two-sides
Kristin Mulvihill and David Rohde
Erik Swain
Islamic militants increasingly favor kidnapping as a weapon of war. In Iraq alone, 57 journalists have been taken hostage since 2003. So when New York Times reporter David Rohde decided to interview a Taliban commander outside Kabul two years ago, he had reason to be nervous. Islamist militants abducted him, along with an Afghan journalist and their driver, taking them deep into the tribal areas of neighboring Pakistan. Rohde’s wife, together with his family and his employer appealed to Washington for help and managed to keep his abduction secret for months. One couple’s account of a kidnapping – and insights it provides about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Guests
David Rohde
reporter, New York Times
Kristen Mulvihill
painter and illustrator
Comments
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Dear David,
I was excited to hear about your story yesterday-on a promo for the Dr show. I was also looking forward to buying and reading the book. I am very pleased both for you, and your entire family that you were able to escape.
Upon hearing that it was your second time being kidnapped (doing basically the same thing in basically the same place), I can only now beleive that your actions were ignorant, immature, irrational, and foolish. Think just for a moment how your family must have felt when, after the first time, you again plaed yourself in grave danger. It surely would have been possible for you to continue your journalistic in a slightly more cautious manner, however you chose not to do that. It seems to me that you created the situation, became the story, placed other journalists in danger, removed some of their credibility for future operations, and now are profiteering from your own poor decision.
I wish you a long, quiet and peaceful life, however please refrain from jumping up, and down, waving your hands and proclaiming your irresponsibility, and carelessness.
Elliot Konner
PO 10545
Bedford NH 03110
Being a Pakistani I was appalled at your comments made against a respectable institute namely ISI and the “unsubstantiated gossip” that you present as truth and make people believe it’s the truth; just because your were kidnapped and made it back alive, if that is some sort of a litmus test to you being truthful. Let me remind you and others reading these comments, this is the same institution that the United States of America Used 100 % in the global war against communism, but now the tides have turned and its people like you who switch sides when it is convenient. I am exactly the same age as you are and I was growing up in Pakistan when this war against communism was happening next door. During this NEW war of terror Pakistanis and Pakistan have incurred billions of dollars of lost revenue damages and agitated its own population, on top of that marred and demonized in global media. The money (2.0 bn) that bothers you so much because its your TAX dollars that America is giving is nothing but peanuts and is going in the pockets of the corrupt officials that the imperial power has imposed on the Pakistani people. your “excursion trips” to these war zones have finical incentives for you, either you return safely or your widow if you expire during your “excursion” just as in the case of Daniel Pearl. People like you are trying to demonize Pakistan so the imperial powers can achieve their goals. You are nothing but a mouth piece for their agendas.