Her name maybe not be the subject of banter around the dinner table, but she has not been forgotten. Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter working for the Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped in Iraq on Jan. 7.
While the world waits, mostly in silence, for news of her fate, the campaign to secure her freedom continues.
The Commitee to Protect Bloggers has begun a campaign to circulate a video produced by the Christian Science Monitor asking the Arab world to help free Jill Carroll. The campaign is aksing bloggers to post the link to the video so that it can be circulated as widely as possible.
Why should we care what happens to Jill Carroll?
Carroll is not some bit player in this drama called Operation Iraqi Freedom? Carroll's abduction, and Daniel Pearl's before her, signifies the dangers of war for people dedicated to reporting the truth as best they can report it. Journalists who venture into the dark times of war understand the risks they take. Why do they do it? For the fame, for the money? Most are either famous or rich, but they continue to go so that we can see the world, in all its horror and glory, through their eyes.
Carroll's fate lies in the hands of individuals who are blinded by a singular hatred of all-things Western. Carroll is not being held against her will because she is Jill Carroll, she is being held because in the eyes of her captors she represents the West in its war against Iraq and Islam.
Carroll and other journalists are easy targets in places like Iraq. They don't carry guns, just cameras and notepads. They place themselves in harm's way so that others can see the harm we are doing to ourselves and others. Anything bloggers can do to keep Carroll's kidknapping in the spotlight is a small victory for humanity.