As Vinod has posted, the Iraqi insurgents who took Indian truck drivers hostage were tokin’ the desert weed with their nonsensical Dr. Evil demands. And here I was thinking the coalition of the willing could fit on a 3x5 index card:
This shadowy group of kidnappers demanded that Indian troops immediately leave Iraq and stop assisting US forces… it was pointed out to the kidnappers that India had no troops in Iraq and was indeed vehemently opposed to the US invasion… The group maintained that the war had killed 250 women and children in Falluja and demanded the Indian [not U.S.] government pay compensation to the bereaved families.
Given their familiarity with underworld financing and general lack of recent employment, aging Bollywood stars jumped into the fray:
[The mediator] Sheikh Hisham al-Dulaimi has a passion for Bollywood… He has three wives and 12 children. He smokes cigars… if big Bollywood stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Asha Parekh and Dharmendra made a personal call to him pleading for the release of the three hostages, the three, in his words, “would be released today itself”.
The imprisoned drivers were more than willing to do their own stunts:
[T]he [Iraqi] guards are hopelessly trained. At the first sound of gunfire they usually run away… “My Iraqi security was pathetic. I shouted at him that if you cannot fire your gun yourself, teach me how to do it.”
