by now everyone has heard this story of florida kid of iraqi descent going to iraq ofcourse the newspapers say he was going for a journalistic view. But most of us know that he was trying to join the war but got caught.

Journalistic view my butt, he got his mind warp into that junk and the extremists are targeting kids to join so it would be harder for the military to find out who is who in this war.

I would tell the FBI to look into his family background and find out whats really going on. Cuz I don't believe a word of it.

I read that he went to Iraq for "a school assignment". What kind of school, would want to put a student in danger? The worst school in the world. I don't know if they actually made him goto Iraq, but the school should get sued for influencing him to get caught!

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i did not read the news but it sounds crazy and set people thinking how did that happen...

The kid was 16, his parents had been born in Iraq so it was sort of easy to get a passport I guess. His mom had given him $10,000 out of the money she earned from stock tips he had given her. He took $1,800 of that with him. He had learned about journalists that live the life of their subject so supposedly that is what he was doing. He wanted to learn how Iraqies lived. He only told two friends until he arrived in Kuwait when he told his parents. He then took a cab and eventually arrived in Baghdad Christmas Day. He took a week off of school to do this. After he arrived in Baghdad he called the AP telling him he had come to do research and humanitation work but the AP called the U.S. Embassy and they sent a soldier to pick him up the next day. Pretty interesting story. Everyone is happy he is home but boy is he gonna be in trouble. For the full story go to http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,180138,00.html

Sorry for bringing this topic up again, but can anyone actually confirm if he was there for a school assignment? Please let me know.

right, because he tried to join the iraqi resistance he contacted AP instead of leaving the "Green Zone" ... and I don't think that it would matter to the US military in Iraq whether they shoot a 16-year old American with Iraqi heritage or a 16-year old Iraqi. After all I've read about the US behavior down there, I doubt that he would be called anything else than a terrorist in the official statements...

...if he tried to join the war and got caught, he'd probably be in Guantanamo now and not on his way home (well, not exactly Guantanamo Bay but one of the US torture centers somewhere in Iraq 'cause why should they make the effort of bringing him to Cuba when there's a cell ready for him a couple of miles away?)

@Mature Lamb he went on his own free will, his school never gave im that assignment, of course if they did, you could consider that school shut down or its administration fired.

So did the guy have terrorist intentions at all? Weird things happen during war times. Actually, why did AP call the US embassy in the first place. So what if someone is of Iraqi descent, maybe he was just there for humanitarian and journalism reasons.

He's just a 16-year-old kid who wanted to go to Iraq, and went without telling anyone. However, since he's of Iraq decent and travelled to a war-stricken third-world nation without saying anything, he gets the nationwide media coverage, while the couple that ran away from home to get married (speaking theoretically) and hopped the border aren't worthy of such a title.

I think that it is stupid that this kid got so much fame. So he went to a dangerous nation without permission - so what? Tie him to a pole, whip him, and send him home and let's be done with it. The constant media support is only encouraging him and others to try stupid things such as that again, not to mention distracting people from more important events that are taking place.