Mr. KENNETH BIGLEY (Hostage): I don't want to die. I don't deserve it. Please, please release the female prisoners that are held in Iraqi prisons. Please, please help me see my wife, who cannot, cannot go on without me. She really can't. And my son…
PETERSEN: And it was his son who pleaded as desperately to the kidnappers.
Mr. CRAIG BIGLEY (Hostage's Son): Be merciful, as we know you can be. Release Ken back to his wife and family. We ask you as a family to be all merciful.
PETERSEN: The kidnappers abducted Bigley and two Americans a week ago, and this week beheaded the Americans. As for letting Bigley make his plea, it fell not on deaf ears, but on the ears of a government that says it cannot negotiate with terrorists, even to save a life.
Mr. JACK STRAW (British Foreign Secretary): I'm afraid to say it can't alter the position of the British government. And as I've explained to the family, we can't get into a situation of bargaining with terrorists, because this would put many more people's lives at risk, not only in Iraq, but around the world.
PETERSEN: His wife, Sombat, issued her own plea saying, "As a loving wife, I beg you once more for mercy."[1]
Peterson introduced this clip by saying that the kidnappers allowed Bigley to make this videotaped plea. This framing reflects a critical misunderstanding of the tape's purpose and importance: while it may have presented an opportunity for the hostage, he was conveying the kidnappers' message, not his own, under duress, and the message and images in the tape constitute a carefully constructed and extremely powerful propaganda text: to view it otherwise is to
78
- ↑ Barry Peterson, "Iraqi Kidnappers Allow British Hostage Kenneth Bigley to Make Videotaped Plea for His Life," CBS News, The Early Show, September 23, 2004, available from Lexis-Nexis Academic, web.lexis-nexis.com.libproxy.lib.unc.eduuniverse/document?_m=e7e67f79005c9342621b4655d1384ef2&_docnum=8&wchp=dGLbVtb-zSkVA&_md5=48487373802ed27cd06c96545af96487.
