The family should have contacted President Bush directly. I'm sure our president would have intervened personally, probably shelling out that $150k from his own fat wallet.

What if Iraqi families in this situation had a bounty hunter agency or even the general population help them out.

The family could pay to have these criminals hunted down and killed. Like in the movie "Ransom" in which the father will not pay the kidnappers but instead promises a reward to however rescues his son or kills his kidnappers.

Or, like "Silent Observer or Crime Stopper's" in the USA, someone who knows the kidnappers may be interested in selling them out for money. And if the kidnappers were killed in the process well then no fear of reprisals, perhaps this would cut down on the number of kidnappings.

It could be paid for by the individual's family, the US budget for Iraqi police, Muslim charities, Iraqi oil wealth, or by a national lottery. That way it would be open to anyone not just the rich.

It may seem like a crazy idea but the description of what happened to the family in the story is so sad and makes me so angry that killing the kidnappers for money doesn't seem to be such a bad idea.

While we are at it we could do this with IED's/roadside bombs too, someone knows who these criminals/insurgents are or if someone sees suspicious activity and it pans out then pay them a reward.

Let them notify a 911-like number through private methods vs taking a chance on being seen talking to the Americans and getting themselves killed. Hand-out cell phones to families with a certain number of bought minutes so they can call privately/safely.

If that fails take some of the government money being spent on putting cameras on the US-Mexico border and place them along the roads of Iraq, or in it's cities and towns. That way when something happens you can show it around on TV and see if someone recognizes the kidnappers or the person who was kidnapped and report it, just like an "Amber Alert" when a child is kidnapped, those are very effective.

This is so terrible, I recently lost a brother and felt helpless but in this situation its seems incredibly helpless. The sad thing is muslims killing muslims..what do the terror groups get out of this??

Absolutely terrifying and unbelievably sad.

A governement is sworn to protect its citizens. Since we are the occupying government, do we feel any obligation to protect these people? Or do we feel that this is the Iraqi's problem.

His comment, "We have nothing to do with this." is particularly painful. We have everything to do with this and if we had not made such a henious, misguided mistake he never would have received that phone call.

it's a hard thing to do when a family member is held captive. I mean to just ignore the demands and a few would be sacraficed but if people always ignored ramsom requests thy would eventually stop kidnappings.

I'm grateful to be living in the United States of America and to be an American citizen with the freedoms that I enjoy daily. This would include the piece of mind that my family is safe. Sure, tragic things happen here daily in one place or another. But, I don't have to think about it daily, by the hour, minute, or second. I'm not worrying about finding my family members laying in a pool of blood with body parts missing. I'm not worried about walking out my front door and have a car bomb blast us to pieces. I'm not worried abuot going shopping in a mall or riding a bus and having a suicide bomber set himself off. I can't even fathom the sick thoughts of these people that do these things. These people that do these things seem deranged to me. I can't even fathom having a thought to plan or perform one of these horrendous acts. How depressing it must be to live in that environment 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Thank God that I live in the USA, where I can lead a normal life with normal thoughts and Thank God I, my husband, and my kids have the freedom we have. Sure, we have crime, but nothing like they have to experience in the middle east. Thank God for my life here in the USA. I wish everyone around the world could experience what we, as Americans, experience daily. I pray for and send my thanks to the troups that are fighting for the freedom I enjoy. I hope that someday the people in other parts of the world that only experiece, bondage, depression and grief can experience the freedom and joy that I and my family have. I am saddened by this story, but I must now go on with my normal day.

my first questions is, if it was a new cell phone, how did they get his number? unless he transfered it over to a new one. The more i read the more i questions, it sounds eeriely real, yet it could just be someone screwing around calling random numbers.

And we should pull out? How about killing these SOB's.
Then the rest of America can get back to the really important stuff, like say... developing another pill so fat people won't be fat. Now there is a real problem.

Having opposed this war from the start, I take no satisfaction in seeing that things are even worse than I had anticipated they would become. Anyone who says things are better in this country as a result of Bush's war is either delusional, misinformed, or on Bush's payroll. Freedom and democracy are great things, but neither has been acheived here. To Haider's family, my condolences. Peace.

Is this all to the story thus far?

Oh my God. Oh my God.

Is there any kind of fund set up?

Yeah, but this family is soooooo much better off without Saddam.

These terrorists are clearly not the people of God they claim to be.

After reading this story, I feel a better insight into how the people in Iraq have come to deal with the situation. I keep thinking of how the Iraq situation could be improved, or analysing why this is happening. It is humbling to see how the Haider's brother had accepted the inevitability of Haider's death within a six-minute conversation.

For healthier community developments, We will have to find the means of educating the poor mass.
Once education is given in right and truthfully awearness will develope and realigious boundries will disappear and will lead to reducing of killing
of people, Humankind,

It is sad that a country repressed by twenty years of violence continues to find vilolence and atrocities so easy. The history of revolutions in Russia, France, and America include similar horrors! How slow humans learn.

That is horrid! What bothers me the most is that they have no faith in police. Given the state of unrest in thier country, I can understand, but it is still a sad state of affairs when you can't trust law enforcement enough to report this kind of thing. Our invasion was supposed to help, but I beleive that it has made things like this worse. My heart goes out to this family and to all of the others that have suffered.

It is a catch-22, we can't let people like Al-Zarqawi wander free for obvious reasons, but when we hunt them down we make them martyrs.

ALTHOUGH I MAY UNDERSTAND WHAT HAIDER'S OLDER BROTHER WAS THINKING, THAT IT WAS POINTLESS TO EVEN TRY TO COME UP WITH THE MONEY BECAUSE HE WAS "PROBABLY" DEAD ALREADY OR WILL BE DEAD SOON.AND WHO AM I TO JUDGE.
BUT...COME ON MAN,ITS YOUR BROTHER!!!IF THERE IS ANY HOPE AT ALL TO SAVE HIS LIFE,YOU DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO.WOULDN'T HE WANT HIS BROTHER TO DO THE SAME THING IF HE WAS IN THE SAME SITUATION?
NOW HAIDER'S OLDER BROTHER WILL HAVE TO LIVE WITH HIMSELF THINKING....MAYBE IF WE CAME UP WITH THE MONEY WE WOULD HAVE HIM HOME.
MAYBE WISHFUL THINKING ON MY PART...BUT WE'LL NEVER KNOW.

BMD

Well, that is scary. It's sad that the people of Iraq do not feel comfortable with going to the police with these kinds of crimes. I'd like to hear the recording to ensure this is true.

I thought all cell phones theoritically have GPS or triangulation capacity...don't the authorities have an interest in pursuing kidnappers by exploiting the use of cell phones?

WHY WOULDN'T HE TRY AND DO WHATEVER IT TOOK FOR HIS BROTHERS SAFE RETURN? I GUESS I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE STORY-

I believe that the brother did the right thing by saying whatever the terrorist wanted to hear, and then just begin his mourning period without action. No matter how much terrorism exists, we can not give in to it nor fuel it by surrendering our lives. No matter where we live, we need to stand up to these terrorists. No matter what your religion, if you can ever justify even one death by saying that it is in the name of a God, then you do not deserve the life that your God gave to you.

Very tragic and unfortunate, we hear about kidnappings and bodies found in Iraq everyday but this conversation gives a picture on how grave the situation is,hoping the best for Haider's family!

Wake up America, our President is lying to us. This war is not going well, never was, and it's getting worse by the day. Put down your Kool-Aid and wake up!