Quote :

"BAGHDAD, Iraq - A 16-year-old from Florida who traveled to one of the world's most dangerous places without telling his parents left Baghdad on Friday to begin his journey home, the U.S. Embassy said, drawing to a close an adventure that could have cost him his life."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051231/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_american_teen

what an awesome trip!!
too bad it didn't last long..

12/31/2005 1:27:13 AM

What a completly naive, moron.

Natural selection misses another one.

[Edited on December 31, 2005 at 2:20 AM. Reason : : )]

12/31/2005 2:18:41 AM

What a complete naive, moron.

12/31/2005 2:20:21 AM

Quote :

"Natural selection misses another one."

I don't know if it quite missed him. I think there was some lucky intervention on his part. If not for that we'd have one less idiot to worry about.

12/31/2005 3:44:06 AM

I just don't understand why they'd give a 16 yr old $10,000!!!
maybe wait till he's 18??

12/31/2005 11:52:14 AM

Ah, news...

Running out of things to run, are we?

12/31/2005 2:08:54 PM

Props to this guy. He knew what he was doing, and he did it anyway to pursue his journalistic aspirations.

12/31/2005 2:31:02 PM

"teen rescued from Bagdad"

rescued? maybe i haven't heard all of the story, but it sounded like he was doing just fine and would have made it back okay on his own without using US military resources to "rescue" him.

12/31/2005 3:22:27 PM

and besides that, both his parents are iraqi. so i'm sure he can easily blend in and probably speaks the language. i doubt he would have run into any real trouble. what i'd want to know is who approved a travel visa to a kuwait for a 16 year old w/o parents permission. you'd figure you'd need that for something like a ticket out of the country to the middle east

12/31/2005 3:32:48 PM

^one of the articles said he couldnt speak a word of arabic

still I thought it was pretty fucking cool


[Edited on December 31, 2005 at 3:58 PM. Reason : ]

12/31/2005 3:56:51 PM

That was one lucky dude. He was easily a day or two away from a jump suit and appearing on "Not So Funny Insurgent Home Videos"

12/31/2005 4:59:57 PM

he doesn't speak the lanuage

12/31/2005 5:48:38 PM

if i was his dad... he'd be getting and ass kicking when he got home

12/31/2005 5:49:14 PM

he is back stateside... not that i care.

my reason for posting:

HE HAS A SMOKING SISTER!!!

[Edited on January 4, 2006 at 11:34 AM. Reason : looks to be between 18 and 22 from pic in paper]

1/4/2006 11:33:51 AM

yeah they said he looked like he could blend in facially but not with his jeans, sneakers and lack of any knowledge of speaking arabic

1/4/2006 11:37:14 AM

Quote :

"if i was his dad... he'd be getting and ass kicking when he got home"

The first thing I thought when I read this thread was... If I were his dad how could I teach this kid how to not be a moron. Then I read the post that his parents had given him 10K. Then I thought about how the parents were probably the bigger morons.

I decided to read the article to verify the 10K thing and saw this:

Quote :

"He took his U.S. passport along with $1,800 in cash. He said the money came from a sum of $10,000 his mother had given him after he gave her some stock tips that earned a 25 percent return."

Not sure what to think anymore. The parents trust him enough to drop enough dough on one of his stock tips but don't trust him to spend a week or whatever in Iraq. I'm thinking that was at least a 40K gamble and that is if they gave him all the returns.

1/5/2006 7:53:04 AM

^^^ that statement is meaningless without a pic

1/5/2006 8:53:44 AM