Have you been following the case of Susanne Osthoff? She is the supposed German hostage who was kidnapped in Iraq and freed recently.
It’s widely believed the German government traded a prisoner they have in custody, one Mohammed Ali Hammadi, for the release of Osthoff. Who is Hammadi? A terrorist wanted in our Country for the murder of this Navy Diver:

On June 15, 1985 Hezballah Shi’ites brutally beat, tortured and then killed 23 year old Robert Dean Stethem as he was being held hostage aboard TWA 847 commercial airliner. Robert was on his way home after a tour of duty with the US Navy in the Middle East. The terrorists had hijacked the plane with 153 passengers in Athens Greece forcing the pilot to fly twice to Algiers and twice to Beirut during the 17 day siege. The hostages were released after Israel released 435 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.
“When the plane was at the Beirut airport in Lebanon, Petty Officer Stethem was singled out because he was in the US military. After many hours of being cruelly beaten, tortured, and finally killed by the terrorists, they threw his body from the plane in a final disgraceful, cowardly act. The wounds were so terrible that his body had to be identified by its fingerprints.Throughout the ordeal, Robert Stethem did not yield, and instead encouraged his fellow passengers to endure by his example. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for heroism and bravery. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery.”
–Mark Crawford, Bryantown from “Who Was Robert Stethem”
It’s no coincidence that the release of Hammadi occurred two days prior to the release of this German hostage.
Is it any wonder that these European citizens are being taken hostage left and right now? The leaders of these countries will appease anyone, doesn’t matter who they trample.
Anyways, this hostage gets released and what happens? A circus:
THE German Government angrily rebuked a former hostage yesterday who is determined to return to Iraq despite being held captive for three weeks by a Sunni gang.
Susanne Osthoff, a 43-year-old archaeologist, announced this week on al-Jazeera television that she would go back to her work in northern Iraq, trying to set up a German cultural centre in Arbil.
Angela Merkel?s new Government, which regards the freeing of Frau Osthoff this month as its first foreign policy triumph, is furious. It made huge efforts to secure her release and is widely believed to have paid a ransom. It has now blocked all funding for her project and has told her that she should leave the region immediately. She is believed currently to be in Jordan, with her 12-year-old daughter, preparing to return.
And now today comes this bizarre news:

If former hostage Susanne Osthoff had been better advised, she probably would have opted against appearing on German television entirely covered in a black headscarf. The hijab, which left only a pair of slits for her eyes, made the freed hostage look like a disturbing cross between a Chechen Black Widow suicide bomber and a ninja.
On Wednesday night, 10 days after her release from captivity, a televised interview with Osthoff, who had been held in Iraq for three weeks, was broadcast on the German public television channel ZDF. In the interview’s introduction, the presenter explained that Osthoff’s choice of dress was suposedly intended to preserve her identity –a bizarre thought considering that Osthoff’s face has been all over the front-pages since November and most people in Germany must be quite aware of what she looks like. Besides, she didn’t wear a headdress in her interview with Arab broacaster Al-Jazeera earlier this week.
The second shock for viewers was the rambling, incoherent nature of Osthoff’s answers. Even the heavily edited version (ZDF spokesman: “We wanted to protect Osthoff from herself.”) of the original 15-minute interview was barely comprehensible. Questions were left unanswered and at times Osthoff rambled off into non-sequiturs about how badly she had been treated by her landlord back in Germany. When asked how the kidnapping had been carried out, she was evasive, simply responding: “I think these details are not interesting. That doesn’t interest anyone. Generally kidnappings are carried out quite violently. People watch a lot of television and realize perhaps that you don’t let yourself get abducted voluntarily.”
Perhaps Osthoff was still shaky from what was presumably a traumatic experience? People close to Osthoff told the media her appearance was “strange and unusual,” adding that the stress of the kidnapping seems to have made a nervous wreck out of the once self-assured, articulate woman they knew before the incident. Regardless, the appearance has done little to help her public image in Germany. Media scrutiny of Osthoff on Thursday was intense, with the mass-circulation Bild leading with “Susanne Osthoff: Crazed TV Appearance,” complete with a half-page picture of the headscarf-adorning former hostage. The entire second page is taken up with what the paper calls “The Osthoff Mystery,” which links her to Saddam Hussein’s regime and asks where she got the money to send her daughter to an exclusive boarding school. “The puzzle of Susanne Osthoff will preoccupy us for a long time to come,” the paper concludes, ominously.
Some people have stated that this may be a perfect example of the Stockholm Syndrome, but I disagree. It appears she has supported the Iraqi terrorists from day one and that this was all a ruse, ala Sgrena, to either get Hammadi released or to bring sympathy for her cause.
Is she the German Cindy Sheehan?
Other’s Blogging:
Captain’s Quarters, RadioActive Chef, Tigerhawk, Michelle Malkin, In The Bullpen, LGF

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FA,
Just a note.
R.D. Stethem was a Navy diver (Seabee) not a SEAL. Not that there’s anything wrong w/ being a SEAL, but just wanted to set the record straight.
Robert’s brother Ken, is a retired SEAL CPO.
Great site, keep up the great work!
Semper Fidelis!
thebronze
(Former 1/1 and 3/1 Marine)