Remember, It’s only Wrong When Columbians did it

Reporters Without Borders says the kidnapping of two French military officials in Mogadishu is in itself a cause for deep concern. But it says reports that the two men had posed as journalists prior to their abduction has both shocked and puzzled journalists around the world.

Some kidnap victims just don’t rate I guess.

The Paris-based organization says it has received a confirmation from several Somali sources that the French nationals, who had been in Mogadishu for nine days, had registered at the Sahafi Hotel as journalists. Early Tuesday, nearly a dozen gunmen in a pick-up truck burst into the hotel and took the men away at gunpoint. After the abduction, the hotel registry was reportedly confiscated by Somalia's interior minister.

But the “outrage” barely registers. The mere inference that Columbian troops nearly sported red cross paraphernalia when they undertook the humanitarian act of freeing FARC hostages set off alarm bells. Security contractor’s telling a bunch of hostile goons that they’re journalists? Hardly – there is, at this point just vague speculation that they told anyone that they misrepresented themselves:

"We are trying to get proof that they did write 'journalist' on the registry. The manager of the hotel said it and also our correspondent got that information. We are very concerned because journalists are accused of being spies for other governments," Le Coz said. " We are trying to make people understand that they are not spies.

In other words, this story is about a rumor of what random, normally enraged folk living in a stateless corner of beautiful downtown nowhere told someone somewhere. Since Tintin and the gang deem their word more reliable than anyone elses’ especially if they aren’t likely seeding a story for al-Shabab, why would anyone think anything less of it?