Freed Rescued in Iraq!

Finally!

British-led forces rescued three Christian peace activists from captivity on Thursday after finding them tied up in a house in western Baghdad, two weeks after their American colleague was killed.

Thank God and everyone He used.

And may He continue to comfort the family and friends of the American killed.

Now…how will the “invaders” be bashed by CPT, I wonder.

UPDATE 1: This evening, around 6:10 Oregon time, I read the CPT statement, of which I include these three sentences:

Our hearts are filled with joy today as we heard that Harmeet Singh Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember have been freed safely in Baghdad.

We have been especially moved by the gracious outpouring of support from Muslim brothers and sisters in the Middle East, Europe, and North America.

We pray that Christians throughout the world will, in the same spirit, call for justice and for respect for the human rights of the thousands of Iraqis who are being detained illegally by the U.S. and British forces occupying Iraq.

freed safely — Freed by their abductors? Freed by allied forces? Granted, I used freed in my original headline, though I had “freed by allied forces” in mind. Perhaps CPT did also.

Muslim brothers and sisters — Huh? Are they putting Christianity and Islam in the same bucket?

detained illegally — by those Anglo occupying forces, of course.

Oh well.

Politics as usual.

UPDATE 2: Then I noticed their site had an addenda posted at 6:00 pm my time. (It’s presently 6:25 pm here in Oregon on Thursday, March 23.) Here are the first two paragraphs of the addenda:

We have been so overwhelmed and overjoyed to have Jim, Harmeet and Norman freed, that we have not adequately thanked the people involved with freeing them, nor remembered those still in captivity. So we offer these paragraphs as the first of several addenda:

We are grateful to the soldiers who risked their lives to free Jim, Norman and Harmeet. As peacemakers who hold firm to our commitment to nonviolence, we are also deeply grateful that they fired no shots to free our colleagues. We are thankful to all the people who gave of themselves sacrificially to free Jim, Norman, Harmeet and Tom over the last four months, and those supporters who prayed and wept for our brothers in captivity, for their loved ones and for us, their co-workers.