{"id":350,"date":"2004-09-06T06:09:03","date_gmt":"2004-09-06T11:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=350"},"modified":"2005-01-14T00:48:19","modified_gmt":"2005-01-14T05:48:19","slug":"dude_wheres_my","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2004\/09\/06\/dude_wheres_my\/","title":{"rendered":"Dude, where&#8217;s my ransom?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As Vinod has posted, the Iraqi insurgents who took Indian truck drivers hostage <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/programmes\/3618560.stm\">were tokin&#8217; the desert weed<\/a> with their nonsensical Dr. Evil demands. And here I was thinking the coalition of the willing could fit on a 3<i>x<\/i>5 index card:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>This shadowy group of kidnappers demanded that Indian troops immediately leave Iraq and stop assisting US forces&#8230; it was pointed out to the kidnappers that <b>India had no troops in Iraq<\/b> and was indeed vehemently opposed to the US invasion&#8230; The group maintained that the war had killed 250 women and children in Falluja and <b>demanded the Indian [not U.S.] government pay compensation<\/b> to the bereaved families.<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Given their familiarity with underworld financing and general lack of recent employment, aging Bollywood stars jumped into the fray:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>[The mediator] Sheikh Hisham al-Dulaimi has a passion for Bollywood&#8230; He has three wives and 12 children. He smokes cigars&#8230; if big Bollywood stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Asha Parekh and Dharmendra made a personal call to him pleading for the release of the three hostages, the three, in his words, &#8220;would be released today itself&#8221;.<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>The imprisoned drivers were more than willing to do their own stunts:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>[T]he [Iraqi] guards are hopelessly trained. At the first sound of gunfire they usually run away&#8230; &#8220;My Iraqi security was pathetic. I shouted at him that if you cannot fire your gun yourself, teach me how to do it.&#8221;<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>More by Vinod <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/000321.html\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/000148.html\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Vinod has posted, the Iraqi insurgents who took Indian truck drivers hostage were tokin&#8217; the desert weed with their nonsensical Dr. Evil demands. And here I was thinking the coalition of the willing could fit on a 3&#215;5 index &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2004\/09\/06\/dude_wheres_my\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}