The three questions you needed to ask:
1. Why would someone as intelligent and methodical as you attempt to enter Syria with an expired passport and belongings that identified you as a journalist, unless of course your motive was in fact to be detained and make yourself the story?
2. Why in the hell would the Syrian government put you in a prison, inside a cell with pools of blood and surrounded by screams of young men being tortured, when they suspected you to be a journalist -- probably immediately as an Al Jazeera journalist -- when Syria doesn't allow outside journalists in the country for the very reason that they don't want them to witness and hear exactly the things that they put you in a position to witness and hear?
3. Why do you think you were not allowed to phone home once you were in Iran, considering how comparatively well you were treated in Iran, and considering that other journalists who have been detained in Iran and treated far worse have been able to phone home?
Eli, since the comments are turned off on your slog post about this article, I have to comment here. Your first sentence seems to be missing a verb:
"My interview with Dorothy Parvaz, the former Seattle Post-Intelligencer journalist who disappeared in Syria on April 29 while trying to report for Al Jazeera on the country's democratic uprising."
Nice job, Eli. Just one little thing: Iranians think of themselves as Persion, not Arabian. Maybe that's why Iranian's would not be part of the Arab Spring. They are insulted if you call them Arabs, at least all the Iranians I knew.
@6 Did you read the article? At no point does Eli reference Iranians as Arab. He mentions the Arab World, Arab Spring and the Middle East/Middle-Easterners (Israel and Iran are traditionally the only non-Arab countries in the Middle East) but he doesn't refer to Iranians as "Arabic", however, yes, Iranians are PersiAn.
And the deification of Parvaz continues. She put herself in that situation for no good reason and you'd think she saved the free world. No doubt Eli will fellate himself on KUOW about this tomorrow.
True to form, Eli came all over himself while talking about Parvaz, hero of the state this morning on KUOW. No mention of how her own stunt got her into this trouble, or whether he'd do the US a favor by accompanying her next time on one of her ill-conceived "journalistic" missions.
1. Why would someone as intelligent and methodical as you attempt to enter Syria with an expired passport and belongings that identified you as a journalist, unless of course your motive was in fact to be detained and make yourself the story?
2. Why in the hell would the Syrian government put you in a prison, inside a cell with pools of blood and surrounded by screams of young men being tortured, when they suspected you to be a journalist -- probably immediately as an Al Jazeera journalist -- when Syria doesn't allow outside journalists in the country for the very reason that they don't want them to witness and hear exactly the things that they put you in a position to witness and hear?
3. Why do you think you were not allowed to phone home once you were in Iran, considering how comparatively well you were treated in Iran, and considering that other journalists who have been detained in Iran and treated far worse have been able to phone home?
"My interview with Dorothy Parvaz, the former Seattle Post-Intelligencer journalist who disappeared in Syria on April 29 while trying to report for Al Jazeera on the country's democratic uprising."
We LOVE you.
Oh -- and you ARE a Tough Person.
Thank God.