Canadian hostage, wife & children freed from Afghanistan, Oct 2017 #1

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Walker said:
Why wouldn't they be able to name her? The identification could be done by DNA.
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I think she means that they know who the woman is (as they have published her age) but that for some legal reason are unable to publish her name, not that she is unnamed because they physically cannot identify her. Meaning, she is not Caitlan Coleman.
 
cluciano63 said:
The difficulties of the marriage are referred to in an article above, regarding work and residency status, which seems to have kept them traveling.
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In most cases, marriage facilitates work & residency. Maybe Boyle wanted to join the Taliban, but given his former wife's politics, applying to the Canadian authorities to travel there would have aroused suspicion. As the husband of an American "aid worker," however, getting into Afghanistan would have been easier.
 
Walker said:
1. No. Job. Young people who drift into these third-world danger zones often seem to have no career path. We should view this situation as partially an economic problem. Ironically, they go to Afghanistan, India, Nepal and similar places because they like the freedom.


2. Not to blame the parents in any way, but they might have advised their daughter that these countries are not safe, esp. for pregnant women.


3. I wonder what we are doing over there, except wasting taxpayer money.
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Respectfully snipped and numbered by me.

1) yet it takes money to get to Afghanistan (or India or Pakistan, etc). So someone somewhere had money or a job at one point, or a family member who provided them with money. And money is needed once you are there for food & shelter, as well as often for a driver (although less than what this would cost in the US, I'd think).

2) I am sure her parents felt this way. You can't do anything to stop a 27 year old, though.

3) Word- spending tax payers' money is exactly what we're doing there- and enriching big businesses that are parts of the military-industrial complex. And losing the lives of brave Americans as well as exposing them to the possibility of debilitating injuries. Just another form of corporate welfare provided by mostly the middle class- however, in this case we're losing not just money but Americans.
 
I am interested to know about Josh Coleman's education. Did he attend college or grad school and if so, where and what did he study?

Did he work for (or volunteer with) any NGOs involved in rebuilding Afghanistan or committed to freeing people who have been imprisoned during the War on Terror who some feel may have been arrested without good reason or who have been arrested yet not given due process under the law (ie: ending up in Gitmo, being questioned with "enhanced interrogation techniques," being questioned by LE as a minor without proper accommodations, etc)?

I just don't buy that he has no "career." If he hasn't been working for some organization or doing research through a university or grant program, he and/or his family must be independently wealthy to fund not only Josh & his wife's lives in Canada/US but also their international travel, which is not cheap.

I also don't think he's pro-Taliban but instead against human rights violations - even if they're against terrorists.

I do not understand taking his pregnant wife to Afghanistan or even going there himself while his wife is pregnant. Not what I would do and you can bet if I was pregnant, my DH wouldn't be going to Afghanistan unless he was in the military & had to go.
 
Is the first wife Zaynab also a Canadian citizen?

If she is a Canadian citizen or was raised in Canada, I am less surprised by their divorce.
 
I just don't buy that he has no "career." If he hasn't been working for some organization or doing research through a university or grant program, he and/or his family must be independently wealthy to fund not only Josh & his wife's lives in Canada/US but also their international travel, which is it cheap.
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His father is a Federal Court Judge.I don't think they are hurting for money.
 
I haven't posted on this case because it will be handled or not with all politics. imo But, I just hope he wasn't using her. She was only 15 or 16 when 911 occurred....and they supposedly were talking Star Wars movies? around that time when they got to know each other over the net. So he takes a political move....then married the first wife...only for a year? Then before another year is out he marries Caitlyn. Fast divorce!! Did they every actually meet before he proposed? You don't have to go running all over the map to meet up with your wife...even if having residency problems. (Which I truly don't know anything about w/Canada, but still sounds very odd) They both could have decided to pursue their careers and meet up on the week-ends. Or why get married at all until that is all worked out? Did the parents actually see pics of her pregnant? Seems to me that all the places they visited may have connections for political purposes tying in to his past wife and family. There has been speculation that al-Quaida is connected to SA and may be entering the US that way. How true I don't know, and whatever is going on with the whole situation we will never truly know anyway. On the other hand she may have been deeply interested in politics at the ripe age of 14 and has full knowledge of what he was doing and been a part. It's all very strange, he marrying someone from a notorious family with a very different background..for a year....and then decides to marry someone he's known for over a decade he met on the internet. Don't know if I can believe any of what's been told "as is" to be honest.

I also can't understand the father coming out now asking for the public's help in finding his daughter....except for another political move. I mean, besides military personnel, reporters/journalists and politicians who would have been there to say they had seen them or knew about them..... or others who they may have communicated with know about them being there?

Back to lurkdom on this case.
 
hollyblue said:
I haven't posted on this case because it will be handled or not with all politics. imo But, I just hope he wasn't using her. She was only 15 or 16 when 911 occurred....and they supposedly were talking Star Wars movies? around that time when they got to know each other over the net. So he takes a political move....then married the first wife...only for a year? Then before another year is out he marries Caitlyn. Fast divorce!! Did they every actually meet before he proposed? You don't have to go running all over the map to meet up with your wife...even if having residency problems. (Which I truly don't know anything about w/Canada, but still sounds very odd) They both could have decided to pursue their careers and meet up on the week-ends. Or why get married at all until that is all worked out? Did the parents actually see pics of her pregnant? Seems to me that all the places they visited may have connections for political purposes tying in to his past wife and family. There has been speculation that al-Quaida is connected to SA and may be entering the US that way. How true I don't know, and whatever is going on with the whole situation we will never truly know anyway. On the other hand she may have been deeply interested in politics at the ripe age of 14 and has full knowledge of what he was doing and been a part. It's all very strange, he marrying someone from a notorious family with a very different background..for a year....and then decides to marry someone he's known for over a decade he met on the internet. Don't know if I can believe any of what's been told "as is" to be honest.

I also can't understand the father coming out now asking for the public's help in finding his daughter....except for another political move. I mean, besides military personnel, reporters/journalists and politicians who would have been there to say they had seen them or knew about them..... or others who they may have communicated with know about them being there?

Back to lurkdom on this case.
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There are actually a (small but) fair number of academics (mostly men) & workers for NGOs that go to Afghanistan. I know two male professors who have received grants to do work there, mostly with projects that will improve farming, irrigation, etc.
 
ktgirl said:
Is the first wife Zaynab also a Canadian citizen?

If she is a Canadian citizen or was raised in Canada, I am less surprised by their divorce.
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If I remember correctly from some of the articles, her parents are both naturalized citizens, so Zaynab is a Canadian citizen. However, she and her siblings were raised out-of-country (in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I think--one article says that Zaynab's own daughter was "conceived in Afghanistan"), because their mother did not want them being "corrupted by the West," so they left Canada for the Middle East in the 80s. If I'm reading correctly, the family returned to Canada for health care when their children were older.

Another article with more information on Zaynab and siblings' background:

http://www.cp24.com/news/a-quick-sketch-of-omar-khadr-s-family-1.977121
 
Walker said:
Thank you, Mouse, for explaining part of this strange story.


The Taliban & al-Quaida are strong religious conservatives; seems a bit odd that they would forgive a woman for marrying a Westerner so quickly, and then even attend her second wedding.
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The marriage to Boyle was her third or fourth marriage; her first two marriages were arranged marriages to Middle Eastern men, in the Middle East. So the marriage ceremony that Bin Laden allegedly attended wasn't the marriage to Boyle, if I'm remembering correctly. So that might make more sense than if they'd attended her marriage to a Westerner. I am a little surprised that a religiously conservative Middle Eastern family would not have an issue with her multiple divorces before the age of 30, though.
 
airplanelamp said:
I think she means that they know who the woman is (as they have published her age) but that for some legal reason are unable to publish her name, not that she is unnamed because they physically cannot identify her. Meaning, she is not Caitlan Coleman.
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This is a good point. When I went back to re-read that Pakistan Times article, one paragraph says that a couple consisting of an American woman and a Canadian man was kidnapped, and then the next paragraph says that the body of a woman was delivered to the hospital--but nothing says that the woman in paragraph 1 is the same woman as the deceased woman taken to the hospital in paragraph 2. I was making a false correlation there and not reading carefully enough. I do think the couple in the first paragraph is likely to be Caitlan Coleman and Josh Boyle...because really, how many American woman/Canadian man pairs can there be wandering unprotected in the same hostile area? And I do think she's likely dressing in local clothing out of respect (and maybe necessity, if she needed to pick up some local clothing to accommodate a growing belly); for that matter, in the photo I saw of her parents making an appeal for information, her mother had her hair covered, likely out of respect. So the body being clothed in Afghan garb doesn't rule Caitlan out for me. But you're right--the report is pretty specific about the age being 25, and Caitlan has been reported as being 27. Close enough, but you'd think if they didn't know who it was, they'd just say "body appeared to be the mid-20s."

So that actually makes me feel a little more hopeful that she and the baby might be OK somewhere. I don't know if it's better to hope that they got caught up in something because maybe the husband is involved in something a bit murky, or to hope that they just stumbled into something because they're both naive? Which is more likely to make them of enough value to keep them alive--murky or naive?

I've read that Coleman's parents think that they were hoping to get hired on as aid workers and maybe that's why they were in Afghanistan...but if they'd been thinking logically (and done some of that much-vaunted research), they'd know that you don't just show up, untrained and without approved institutional backing and support, and get hired on the spot as an expat aid worker. (At least, not in war zones, you don't. And certainly not while heavily pregnant, with a serious liver ailment, and likely to be sucking up limited medical resources yourself.) It seems like the husband kind of Wikipedia-ed and talked himself into becoming the Kahdr family spokesperson back in Canada, so maybe he had a mistaken notion about "just showing up and throwing ourselves into the relief effort" would work the same way in hostile areas.
 
lokasenna said:
Damn.

I'm an online friend of Josh's since 2003. <snipped for space>
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I know this is a victim friendly forum, so feel free to <snip> me, but it seems that Caitlan is the real victim here. From the conversations quoted above, I wonder whether Josh has some sort of personality disorder. He seems to see the women (and children!) in his life as pawns rather than people. I hope two lives will not be lost because of his impulsivity and "boredom".
 
Thank you, Lokasenna, for providing some interesting background.


lokasenna said:
[00:05:34] Josh> No kidding, it's the most ridiculous thing I could imagine, an Irish Christian marrying an Islamic terrorist quietly.
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Is it possible that Josh is also partly of Mideastern, Indian or Central Asian descent, which might help explain how he got involved with the first wife to begin with?

Theory: Boyle wanted to experience an "authentic" life as a "freedom fighter" in Afghanistan, completely humiliate his father and perhaps meet up with his former wife. The Taliban allows polygamy. The marriage to Ms. Coleman may have been a mere convenience to help him get a visa for Afghanistan. He had a “Hemingway” complex.

The Coleman family may be afraid that Boyle just abandoned their daughter somewhere. Seems odd that the Colemans mentioned that they had last heard from him via internet in what he had described as a dangerous area, but not from her?

An extreme sensitivity to boredom can be a symptom of a psychopathic personality.

I have a brother in Guantanamo Bay, another in Federal Prison, and my Father-in-Law was killed in the Invasion of Afghanistan...not fighting for the good guys :p
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Does he actually mean his ex-brothers-in-law or is he related to other prisoners who are not part of his former wife's family?

[Was Zaynab]... blinded by my rugged good looks? By somebody taking a selfless concern in her family's wellbeing? Single mother raising a kid in a country where everybody hates her?
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He is trying to charm with self-deprecating humor, but Boyle looks not rugged in any sense, but needy and self-indulgent. He sneers at Coleman for trying to charm him with her "selflessness," but yet tries to use the same technique on Zaynab. Charming people (or trying to charm them) is also a symptom of psychopathy.

His affection for Zaynab is based on pity and sentimentality (shallow emotions), or so he claims. Canada is extremely liberal, and that she felt hated for being a single mom or a Muslim or an antiwar activist (or any combination) is extremely doubtful. The media loved her, and maybe that is why he wanted her, because he just needed a lot of attention. Her family may have also given him a huge dowry.

Picture of Zaynab with Boyle:
th


[00:18:46] Josh> Apparently, consensus seems to be that I make an awesome father, but a ****** husband
[00:18:50] Josh> unsurprising, really
[00:18:59] Me> Is that her opinion? :p
[00:19:15] Josh> and everybody who knows us
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Strange that Zaynab, who is never seen publicly without a black veil over her head, would be so openly disrespectful to her husband, even if she were joking.

Other people around them were telling the young recently married couple that he was not good for her? He is trying to charm, but the situation he describes would be disturbing to most people.
 
I too was an online friend of Josh's, since around 2002. I last spoke to him in mid 2012, when he had just came home from a stint in South America doing humanitarian work. He was in high spirits about his wife, and characterized his divorce from Khadr as amicable.

My purpose here is not to defend Josh. He, like any human, has character flaws and makes mistakes. I do want to make sure he isn't characterized inaccurately though.

Josh is probably the most knowledgeable person I know. He loves research and approaches things with curiosity (which is why I think he married Khadr.) I know he's always had an interest in terrorism, especially the Taliban. I want to make it clear that he didn't identify with the Taliban, but he respected their willingness to fight. Josh himself was a devout Christian (raised Menonite), and identified as a pacifist.

It has been speculated that he was partially middle-eastern. This is not the case. I've met him, he's not bi-racial in any sense. Being that we know who he is, it would be easy to find out his ancestry.

Josh is a good friend of mine, and while he is socially akward, naive, and adventurous...he doesn't really have any inclinations towards malice. I hope he is found safely.
 
For what it’s worth, Boyle doesn’t look like an insane murderer.

From the Scott Horton show on Antiwar.com:

http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_12_18_cockburn.mp3

Speculation that our government systematically "blacks out" news from foreign nations targeted for aggression (in this case, Syria, where we Americans are funding terrorist rebels allied with al-Quaida), and various other developing nations is discussed. Patrick Cockburn suggests that the true problem is that as huge numbers of US & European news agencies have simply gone out of business, the quality of journalism has plummeted, leaving anti-war activists short of the facts needed to develop persuasive arguments against the wars.

[The whole show is interesting, but starting @14:30 is especially relevant].

The corporate-owned US mainstream media merely relies on third-hand accounts from expatriates to spin narratives; since their only goal is to push the Zionist-Corporatist pro-war agenda, they do not care if their sources have any grasp of the true situation in any of these countries.

The poor quality of US reporting is frustrating to many posters at WB, since we may develop a theory about how or why a person went missing (or a particular incident occurred) only to later discover that important details in the newspaper account were just. plain. wrong.

Possibly Coleman and Boyle either did not have access to reliable information, or eventually dismissed every report as pro-war system agit-prop.

Boyle may not have realized that the danger was real.
 
From antiwar.com:

http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_12_26_landay.mp3


The general perception is that the “Taliban-al Quaida” Afghani alliance under Mullah Omar is monolithic; however, many factions exist. Again, the entire discussion is interesting, but @11:30 the complexity of the political situation is specifically addressed.

Boyle may have under-estimated the conflict between these different factions. Engaged in research for a book, Boyle may have been perceived as a spy by one group or another. The Taliban may possibly spare the life of the naïve Kaitlan Coleman, but according to Landay, the Taliban has no incentive to talk to representatives of US interests at all.
 
Walker said:
From antiwar.com:

http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_12_26_landay.mp3


The general perception is that the “Taliban-al Quaida” Afghani alliance under Mullah Omar is monolithic; however, many factions exist. Again, the entire discussion is interesting, but @11:30 the complexity of the political situation is specifically addressed.

Boyle may have under-estimated the conflict between these different factions. Engaged in research for a book, Boyle may have been perceived as a spy by one group or another. The Taliban may possibly spare the life of the naïve Kaitlan Coleman, but according to Landay, the Taliban has no incentive to talk to representatives of US interests at all.
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Being as close as he was to his ex's family and his interests I would find it hard to believe he didn't know more about the different factions and their political/religious views. I well remember this being brought into the genenal knowledge of the US in the 90's with Operation Desert Storm. Agree there may well be some psychological issues with him that push him to go beyond the norm...and his access to monies to make it possible, but I believe he is intelligent and well educated. With the former taking precedence....possibly a scenario of fatal happenchance. IMO
 
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