Free the Captives: Witness Against Illegal Detention and Torture

Tonight, the foremost question on our minds is: Where Is Tom Fox? A London Times analysis of the video aired March 7th suggests that Tom's absence "could be a ploy to raise pressure on the other hostages' governments by suggesting that he has died or been killed." However, this report also notes several reasons for hope:

– The background in the video is bland and unthreatening. Previous videos of hostages subsequently killed have shown paramilitary insignia and hooded gunmen

– The date on the video, might be fake, but the general appearance of the hostages, especially their gaunt expressions, suggests that the video was made recently

– The hostages showed no obvious sign of injury or physical abuse

– The captives appear to be wearing civilian clothes, and Professor Kember’s hands are unshackled. A December 7 video showed them behind bars in orange jumpsuits. Other hostages who were killed were filmed in jumpsuits with their hands bound

– The hostages did not look frightened, suggesting they have built up some sort of relationship with their captors and do not believe they are facing imminent death

We cannot bear witness to this analysis without further information, but we continue to join Tom with our prayers. We appeal to his captors to show the world that he is still safe. We likewise appeal to them to relent and release these men who work , held captive now for more than 100 days.

We note that Christian peacemakers in Iraq have said that the root cause of their colleagues' abduction "is the U.S. and British-led invasion and occupation of Iraq."

The Christian Science Monitor is running ads on Baghdad TV stations, urging the release of its reporter Jill Carroll, kidnaped there two months ago. We hope she too will soon be released, safe and sound.

Offscreen in Iraq, widespread violence continued. About 50 employees of a private security company in Baghdad were kidnaped en masse on Wednesday. They kidnappers wore camouflage or police uniforms. Earlier, police found the bodies of 23 men who had been bound and strangled or shot.

Former US President Jimmy Carter called on his successor in the White House to withdraw US troops from Iraq within the next 12 months. "It was a completely unnecessary war. It was an unjust war," said Carter, the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner. "It was initiated on the basis of false pretenses. All of those are true, but we can't just pre-emptively withdraw."

As of Wednesday, US troop deaths are now at 2303.

In the US, there were more dispatches from the "Civil War" linguistic front:

"We're in a civil war now; it's just that not everybody's joined in," said retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, a former military commander in Bosnia-Herzegovina. "The failure to understand that the civil war is already taking place, just not necessarily at the maximum level, means that our counter measures are inadequate and therefore dangerous to our long-term interest.

"It's our failure to understand reality that has caused us to be late throughout this experience of the last three years in Iraq," added Nash, who is an ABC News consultant.

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told ABC News, "If you talk to U.S. intelligence officers and military people privately, they'd say we've been involved in low level civil war with very slowly increasing intensity since the transfer of power in June 2004."

University of Michigan Middle East expert Juan Cole added that "Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's continued state of denial about this is putting the US in danger..."