U.S. family begs for mercy for couple held in Afghanistan
Issues plea to Taliban to free pair missing since 2012
By The Associated Press
Friday, July 1
Analysis by LettersToTheBeast
STEWARTSTOWN, PA.—The family of an American woman reported missing in Afghanistan in 2012 with her Canadian husband said they got a letter from their daughter in the last year, and they pleaded for mercy from the couple’s captors.
…
It was the first communication from her since her parents received two videos in 2013 in which the missing couple asked the U.S. government to free them from the Taliban.
They are confused. The Taliban are not ISIS. The U.S. government has no control or authority over the Taliban. It’s not like John McCain or the Pentagon can call them up and issue orders to them.
Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle lost touch with their families while travelling in a mountainous region near the Afghan capital, Kabul. Her parents, Jim and Lyn Coleman, told online news service Circa News that they received a letter from her in November 2015. It will be four years this July 4 on Monday that Caitlan’s family last saw her and her husband.
Uh, yeahhh. “Travelling.” Another one of those cases where this nice couple were out hiking in the Poconos, their GPS somehow malfunctioned and, gosh-darnit, they somehow strayed across the border and ended up in Afghanistan. Hey, these things happen all the time, you know. Just ask those college students who were hiking in Iraq inexplicably ended up in Iran.
The couple set off in the summer of 2012 for a journey that took them to Russia, the central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and then to Afghanistan. The Colemans last heard from their son-in-law on Oct. 8, 2012, from an Internet cafe in what Josh described as an “unsafe” part of Afghanistan.
Oh, I see. They somehow, accidentally ended up in one of those “unsafe” parts of Afghanistan. The stuff the tourism and convention bureau staff leave out of the travel brochures.
The article goes into the usual emotional family stuff. Sister, son-in-law, mom, father, grandfather. Yet what the article fails to mention is what these two actually did for a living. What job are they working at that allows them to take months off work to go hiking in, ahem, Afghanistan? In Two Thousand And Twelve? That, uh, Company, wouldn’t be based in Langley, Virginia, would it? As WhatReallyHappened.com’s Michael Rivero often observes: look for what isn’t there but should be.
“As a man, father and now grandfather, I am asking you to show mercy and release my daughter, her husband, and our beautiful grandchildren,” Jim Coleman said. “Please grant them an opportunity to continue their lives with us, and bring peace to their families.”
If I were a public relations officer in the Taliban’s front office in Kabul, my letter of reply to Mr. Coleman would point out the number of daughters, husbands, beautiful grandchildren as well as sons, mothers and wives killed by drone strikes is so obscenely high the U.S. government literally considers it a state secret. Perhaps Mr. Coleman can ask his daughter and/or son-in-law exactly what that number is if and when they return.
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